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Re:Hobby kernel and userspace, built mostly from scratch by sand500 on Thursday November 06, 2014 @02:36PM (#8569201)
Is ToAru-OS a reference to raildex?
Re:Hobby kernel and userspace, built mostly from scratch by delluminatus on Thursday November 06, 2014 @04:10PM (#8569797)
I would love that. But "to aru" also actually means something in Japanese, which I would translate like, "there is an". Disclaimer: I definitely am not an expert on Japanese.

It's actually kind of hard to translate concisely, IMO the phrase that best captures the meaning of "ToAru-OS" is "There exists an OS". But it's kind of awkward.

If we used the Raildex translation, ToAru-OS would be "A Certain OS".

Re:Hobby kernel and userspace, built mostly from scratch by gh02t on Thursday November 06, 2014 @05:26PM (#8570195)
Yeah, I think something along the lines of "an existant OS" is an acceptable translation. "To aru" has a subtle connotation implying that it is a standalone thing in its own regard. It's a pretty clever name for a hobby project like this, IMO.
Re:Hobby kernel and userspace, built mostly from scratch by byuu on Friday November 07, 2014 @04:50AM (#8571815)
Sorry for going off-topic here to the thread, but ...

As someone studying the language, can you explain what the と portion of the name means? I am aware of the ある (有る) portion, "to exist", and that と is being used here to represent a clause, eg "Xと言った" (X said), "Xと思った" (X thought).

But in this case, there's nothing before とある, so why say と at all in this case? Why not just say あるOS?

Re:Hobby kernel and userspace, built mostly from scratch by delluminatus on Friday November 07, 2014 @09:57AM (#8572750)
I think it's stylistic. The anime series (To aru majutsu no index) uses the same style of "to aru <noun>" instead of "<noun> to aru". It reminds me of Latin, where you can adjust the position of phrases in the sentence for emphasis or rhythm.

Personally, I think of the "to" as emphasizing the specificity of the phrase, if that makes sense. It's not just that "an OS", it's this specific OS that's being referenced by "aru".

Re:Hobby kernel and userspace, built mostly from scratch by byuu on Friday November 07, 2014 @07:41PM (#8575484)
Ah, most interesting. Didn't think you were allowed to ever move "X to <verb>" to "to <verb> X", but great to know that this happens. Thank you for the explanation!
Re:Hobby kernel and userspace, built mostly from scratch by Manger on Friday November 07, 2014 @02:15AM (#8571507)
According to the FAQ on the wiki, the developper is a fan of one of A Certain Scientific Railgun. https://github.com/klange/toaruos/wiki/FAQs