Version 7 Linux

Posted Feb 13, 2026 19:09 UTC (Fri) by bof (subscriber, #110741)
Parent article: The first half of the 7.0 merge window

That'll really be a milestone, Version 7 Linux, just 47 years after the original.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Version_7_Unix

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Version 7 Linux

Posted Feb 13, 2026 20:00 UTC (Fri) by devnull13 (subscriber, #18626) [Link] (5 responses)

Red Hat did something similar. There was originally Red Hat 1-9, with the last release in 2003. Then they renamed it Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and restarted the numbering scheme with RHEL 2.1. RHEL 9 was released in 2022, 19 years later. (The current release number is 10.)

Version 7 Linux

Posted Feb 13, 2026 20:23 UTC (Fri) by jmalcolm (subscriber, #8876) [Link] (1 responses)

I cannot wait for Windows 95

Version 7 Linux

Posted Feb 13, 2026 22:00 UTC (Fri) by abatters (✭ supporter ✭, #6932) [Link]

There actually was a "Slackware 96" back in the day.

Version 7 Linux

Posted Feb 13, 2026 21:33 UTC (Fri) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] (1 responses)

There was a bit more than just resetting the version number. Red Hat started in the days when Linux was mostly for individual users and maybe some small businesses, and the idea of an Enterprise distribution wasn't on anyone's mind. Over the course of time, they started to make real money charging for support contracts, but the standard Red Hat distribution was for everyone, home user and enterprise client alike.

When they created RHEL, it wasn't just a name change to give them an excuse to restart their numbering. It was mostly about formally splitting the Red Hat distribution into two tracks: a paid support RHEL version and a community supported Fedora version. You can reasonably claim that Fedora is as much a successor to Red Hat Linux as RHEL is. It really was a big change in the way everything was done, and I guess they decided it made more sense to restart numbering from 1 rather than having both RHEL and Fedora start at 10.

Version 7 Linux

Posted Feb 16, 2026 10:50 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Red Hat's more "stable releases" product offerings had already split off from RHL prior to Fedora Core. E.g., Red Hat Linux Advanced Server. RHL ostensibly still was the desktop product, but then even Red Hat's desktop customers (based on my experience from Sun and who they had as desktop customers, that would have largely been banks, trading companies and EDA firms) found RHL too fast moving, given that Red Hat then also created a RHEL Workstation edition. The next release after RHL 9 was then FC 1.

Version 7 Linux

Posted Feb 16, 2026 10:34 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

It wasn't Red Hat 1-9, it was "Red Hat Linux" (RHL). And RHL wasn't renamed to "Red Hat Enterprise Linux". RHEL started out as "Red Hat Advanced Server", and via few more rebrandings to "Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition", as a more stable fork of RHL. E.g,, RHEE 6.2 was based off RHL 6.2 / 7, RHEL 2.1 from RHL 7.2.

RHL became Fedora Core Linux, not RHEL.

Version 7 Linux

Posted Feb 13, 2026 20:05 UTC (Fri) by devnull13 (subscriber, #18626) [Link]

Thanks for making me feel even older. Version 6 was one of the first operating systems I used at work. (Along with PWB UNIX and Version 7.) 👴💾

Version 7 Linux

Posted Feb 13, 2026 20:20 UTC (Fri) by jmalcolm (subscriber, #8876) [Link] (2 responses)

> Version 7 Linux, just 47 years after the original

Version 7 was already repeated with the introduction of UnixWare 7 in 1998. That is a bit less than half-way between the first UNIX v7 and now.

Version 7 Linux

Posted Feb 13, 2026 20:36 UTC (Fri) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (1 responses)

MacOS 7 seems to have been 1991. Though…it wasn't a Unix at that point, was it?

Anyways, it looks like this was my first computing device (provided to the school and used in our "computer lab" (the school stage or cafeteria floor once the stage was repurposed as the library during construction too)) as MacOS 8 doesn't look as familiar.

Version 7 Mac

Posted Feb 14, 2026 18:01 UTC (Sat) by notriddle (subscriber, #130608) [Link]

There's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/UX, but that was an add-on.

Version 7 Linux

Posted Feb 13, 2026 20:20 UTC (Fri) by jmalcolm (subscriber, #8876) [Link] (8 responses)

> Version 7 Linux, just 47 years after the original

Version 7 was already repeated with the introduction of UnixWare 7 in 1998. That is a bit less than half-way between the first UNIX v7 and now.

Version 7 Linux

Posted Feb 14, 2026 4:59 UTC (Sat) by willy (subscriber, #9762) [Link] (7 responses)

HP-UX made it to version 7 in 1990!
Solaris 7 was 1998
FreeBSD 7 was 2008
AIX 7.1 was 2010
IRIX stopped at 6.5.30
Tru64 and Ultrix both stopped before 7

Any major Unix variants I forgot?

Version 7 Linux

Posted Feb 14, 2026 6:54 UTC (Sat) by bof (subscriber, #110741) [Link]

The last Sinix (by Siemens) version, which was the first Unix that I got to use back in the days, stopped at 5.43, in 1995. By then I was already fully on Linux, and did not miss it at all.

Version 7 Linux

Posted Feb 14, 2026 12:12 UTC (Sat) by alx.manpages (subscriber, #145117) [Link]

There's the UNIX V7 certification:
<https://unix.org/unixv7.html>

It's called V7 because it certifies that a system conforms to Issue 7 of the SVID/XPG/SUS/POSIX lineage of specifications.

In practice, it means conformance to POSIX.1-2008 plus some extensions required for SUS.

Probably the worst of all names they could have chosen.

Version 7 Linux

Posted Feb 14, 2026 21:49 UTC (Sat) by Sesse (subscriber, #53779) [Link] (4 responses)

> Any major Unix variants I forgot?

Emacs was at version 13 (after renumbering from 1.12) already in 1985.

Version 7 Linux

Posted Feb 14, 2026 22:09 UTC (Sat) by willy (subscriber, #9762) [Link] (3 responses)

But Emacs is a Lisp Machine, not a Unix derivative

Version 7 Linux

Posted Feb 19, 2026 23:52 UTC (Thu) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link] (2 responses)

Na, na - as everybody knows, "Emacs is an operating system" that just happens to have an integrated editor. Google searches confirm that, and we know that Google is always right.

;-) :-)

Version 7 Linux

Posted Feb 20, 2026 0:12 UTC (Fri) by willy (subscriber, #9762) [Link] (1 responses)

Yes, my point is that Emacs is of an entirely different heritage from Unix. Its lineage starts on ITS, then it was ported to the MIT Lisp Machine, then to Unix. Essentially it treats Unix as a grudging substrate; the Emacs OS is a universe of Lisp

Version 7 Linux

Posted Feb 20, 2026 0:31 UTC (Fri) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]

Agreed, and well said.

Version 7 Linux

Posted Feb 19, 2026 17:33 UTC (Thu) by andy_shev (subscriber, #75870) [Link]

For Version 7 Linux it took only 35 years.