This is an old revision of this page, as edited by VanishedUser 390318 (talk | contribs) at 21:13, 3 August 2005 (expand). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 21:13, 3 August 2005 by VanishedUser 390318 (talk | contribs) (expand)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)A wheel war is a contest between privileged users on a shared, on-line computer system. Each discovers (or invents) ways to interfere with the other's use of the system, generally as a practical joke, or a way of blowing off steam.
The term originated in the late 1960s or early 1970s when Unix was a very common operating system. In many Unix systems, the su command could be used to gain superuser access to a machine. Fearing misuse, some system administrators only allowed users in a certain group to use su; this group was frequently referred to as "wheel". GNU su, does not support "wheel", primarily for such philosophical reasons.
 | This computing article is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it. |