 This is going to be a very nerdy video because chances are the vast majority of the people who aren't nerds I will have no clue what the hell I'm talking about But if you're a Linux person and you've ever done any installation of a more complex distro like arch or gentoo or Void or any of these distros that kind of make you get into the nitty-gritty of what Linux is you've probably come across the term wheel group and I've come across this many times and I've installed arch or if when I'm was messing around even with Debbie in the other day You know, I've come across this term wheel group and I wondered what the hell does that mean? Why is it called wheel now before we get into the origin stories, which is what I want to talk about today Let's first talk about what the wheel group is and it's really simple So first if you don't know a Linux group is basically a group of users on your computer That are assigned certain privileges the wheel group in particular is a group of people who have Administration privileges meaning that they can access the root of your computer through sue or pseudo So for example, if you are a user and you weren't in the wheel group You would not be able to install anything because you couldn't use Pseudo privileges without knowing this the root password So basically what it does if you have a user in the wheel group, you can use Pseudo to install programs or run administrative commands So basically that's what the wheel group is But it's a weird name, right? Like why don't you call the root group or the administrative group or literally anything else? Why is it called the wheel group? It's always bothered me Like why is it called the wheel group? How does that correlate to being a group on Linux? It doesn't make any sense, right? So the curious guy in me finally got around to looking it up. So that's what we're gonna be talking about today Why is the wheel group called the wheel? I told you this was gonna be nerdy. So let's jump in So as a lot of things do in Linux The wheel group originated with a man called Richard Stallman now Richard Stallman is one of the most controversial guys in the Linux community or the open-source community I suppose it is really what you should say and We're not gonna get into that. I don't care whether you like Richard Stallman or you don't like Richard Stallman that's not the point of the video but the wheel group originated with him and We don't really know why we don't know why he called it the wheel group as far as I can tell from the research I've done now granted. It's a small amount of research, but I have done some research We don't really know why he called it that The only thing we have is this three paragraph statement over What the wheel group really kind of means and the origins of it. So basically it states that a group of Administrators changed the operator password for a twin X a system. I don't even know if I'm pronouncing that right because I've no clue It was I wasn't born in 1984. So not a clue what that is something at the MIT AI lab And they were keeping it secret from everybody else. He was able to get past that my changing the kernel However, occasionally the rulers do tell everybody so he's basically tell it's really confusing, right? Under the usual sue mechanism once someone learns the root password who sympathizes with the ordinary users he or she Can tell the rest the wheel group feature would make this impossible and thus Cement the power to the rulers So basically he says that the wheel group exists so that not all the power in the Linux system or the GNU system in this case Resides with just one person. It's not just with the root. It can give the power to any number of people anybody who's in the wheel group And he says I'm on the side of the masses not that the other realer So it's a very weird statement from a very weird guy and it doesn't tell you Jack squat about why he called it wheel or Really, I mean anything other than what the wheel group kind of is so again, I ask why is it called the wheel group and The answer is or at least the answer that I've been able to come up with is that it's named after something called big wheel So let's take a look at that So as is Very common the answer that I found is given on stack exchange So whether or not this is true I can actually tell you but I found it in multiple places whether or not all those people got it from the same place I don't know it's possible but this person here asked where did the wheel group get its name and One of the answers is the one that I'm thinking is true, but I'm not actually sure it does have some source links They said that the wheel is from the slang big wheel for a powerful person a person who has an active wheel bit the traditional name of a security group zero in BSD to which a major system internal users like root belong is Wheel and then a wheel bit is also helpfully defined This person says is a privilege bit that allows the Possessor to perform some restricted operation on a time-sharing system such as read or write any file on the system regardless of protections Change or look at any address in the running monitor crash or reload the system and kill or create jobs and user accounts Okay, so we're getting closer. So we've come up with the term big wheel now the question then becomes what does big wheel mean and According to this thread here. This is exactly what it means. Yeah That's a big wheel now whether or not this is true. I don't know I have no clue If we follow some of these links Apparently we'll get a definition of big wheel is another way to describe an important person a big wheel may be head of a company a Political leader a famous doctor. They are big wheels because they are powerful They what they do affects many persons big wheels give or the orders other people carry them out as in Many machines a big wheel makes the little wheels turn So this is where the origin of wheel comes from because Obviously the wheel group is a group that gives users power So if you're member of the wheel group, you could be technically called a big wheel Weird, right Now like I said very nerdy, but Kind of also kind of interesting now I think that the reason why most people kind of don't correlate the term big wheel with like Big wig or something is because we don't really know what a big wheel is that little tight thing that has a big wheel Probably hasn't been around since the 90s. I don't actually know if they still make them anymore. It's possible I know the back in the 90s I had one when I was much smaller than I am now So they did so make them in the 90s, but apparently they're much more popular Back in the post-World War two era I do also know that they had the like a tricycle one that was made out of like probably metal of some kind and It probably had like lead paint on it and everybody who every road one is probably dead now, but They've been around for a long time and apparently that Little toy made it into the vernacular of English to become known as someone who held power over others and that Translated all the way down back into the 1980s when GNU slash Linux was first being I'm really good new and then Linux was you know being put together and BSD and all that kind of stuff into this whole wheel group thing and That's where wheel group comes from Supposedly again. It's a hundred percent possible that the stack exchange article has led me wrong I have clicked on the links and I've read this stuff. I Had no clue that big wheel was anything more than just a toy. I Had no clue. So that's what that was very interesting So that's it for this video if you want to get in contact with me You can do so at the Linux cast you can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash Linux cast Make sure you like and subscribe and comment all that kind of stuff below before I go I'd like to take a moment to thank my current patrons Devon Chris East Coast Webgent to his fun to Marcus Meglens Fenjax and knife a tool Joshua Lee Mitchell Mr. Fox Arts Center American camp. Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time