D-Bus Hell

D-Bus Hell Sunday 11 Oct 2026 The time has come to address the elephant in the comments. Whenever my blog hits a place with a comments section the most predictable comment I see — besides some variation of “this idiot is utterly delusional!” — is this one: lol I read the domain as “D-Bus Hell” Random commenter.

D-Bus Hell 2026年10月11日星期日，是时候处理评论区里的“大象”了。每当我的博客出现在有评论区的地方，我看到的最可预测的评论——除了诸如“这白痴简直是妄想症！”之类的变体——就是这一条：哈哈，我把这个域名看成了“D-Bus Hell”（D-Bus地狱）。——随机评论者。

I’d prefer if they focused on my actual blog content but I can’t get annoyed at people for seeing the wrong words. There’s a reason experts-exchange.com has a hyphen, and who can forget Susan’s party? I’d probably read “D-Bus Hell” myself, if I forgot my own name.

我更希望他们关注我实际的博客内容，但我不能因为人们看错了词而感到恼火。experts-exchange.com 使用连字符是有原因的，谁又能忘记 Susan 的派对呢？如果我忘了自己的名字，我可能也会读成“D-Bus Hell”。

But for the sake of the record I would like to point you to your nearest WHOIS tool: $ whois dbushell.com Domain Name: DBUSHELL.COM Creation Date: 2004-05-14T22:51:48Z. Don’t ask me what I was doing at ten minutes to midnight registering a domain name. Is there a more appropriate time? The significant point is the date: May 2004. That was 22 years ago.

但为了记录在案，我想请你查看最近的 WHOIS 工具：$ whois dbushell.com 域名：DBUSHELL.COM 创建日期：2004-05-14T22:51:48Z。别问我为什么在午夜前十分钟注册域名。还有比这更合适的时间吗？重点在于日期：2004年5月。那已经是22年前的事了。

Now if I may direct your attention to the D-Bus project Wikipedia page: Release November 2006; 19 years ago. I rest my case. The D-Bus project doesn’t even have it’s own domain name, for crying out loud! So next time you see a post about D-Bus, maybe drop a comment saying: “reminds me of that dummy with a blog and a giant logo spelling out his full name!” Or something to that effect. (I’m joking, don’t do that.)

现在，请允许我将你的注意力引向 D-Bus 项目的维基百科页面：发布于2006年11月；19年前。我陈述完毕。天哪，D-Bus 项目甚至连自己的域名都没有！所以下次当你看到关于 D-Bus 的帖子时，也许可以留下一条评论说：“这让我想起了那个有个博客，还用巨大标志拼出全名的笨蛋！”或者类似的话。（我在开玩笑，别真的这么做。）

What’s in a name. To date I’ve resisted the siren call of nominative determinism so I can’t answer to whether D-Bus is actually hell or not. I considered writing a D-Bus review as a joke, but then I decided to watch paint dry. I’ve never heard Linux nerds express any strong opinions on the topic (for which they’re prone to do; see Systemd, Wayland, etc.)

名字里有什么？迄今为止，我抵制住了“提名决定论”的诱惑，所以我无法回答 D-Bus 是否真的是地狱。我曾考虑写一篇 D-Bus 的评论作为笑话，但后来我决定还是去看墙上的油漆变干。我从未听过 Linux 极客们对这个话题表达过任何强烈的观点（尽管他们通常很喜欢这样做；参见 Systemd、Wayland 等）。

I did go down the Wikipedia rabbit hole of cognitive psychology and linguistics. There’s an interesting read on Rebracketing where a word like “Hamburger” becomes “ham + burger” which was altered from the origin: “Hamburg + er”. This is a form of Folk etymology where words can change due to unfamiliarity.

我确实钻进了认知心理学和语言学的维基百科兔子洞。关于“重切分”（Rebracketing）有一篇有趣的读物，比如“Hamburger”一词变成了“ham + burger”，而它原本的词源是“Hamburg + er”。这是一种民间词源学，词汇会因为陌生感而发生改变。

Etymology. My surname could simply come from “bushel”. An imperial unit of volume still favoured by fantasy novels, before the Trollocs attack and shit gets real. “Bushel” dates back to Middle English with origins in the Old French word “boissel”.

词源。我的姓氏可能仅仅源于“bushel”（蒲式耳）。这是一种英制体积单位，在巨魔攻击、事情变得严重之前的奇幻小说中仍然很受欢迎。“Bushel”可以追溯到中古英语，起源于古法语单词“boissel”。

At the risk of being part French, I’m inclined to believe an alternate theory that my name derives from “Bossall” a hamlet in North Yorkshire. But that would make me part Yorkshireman. I’m not sure which is worse.

冒着可能有一半法国血统的风险，我倾向于相信另一种理论，即我的名字源于北约克郡的一个小村庄“Bossall”。但这会让我有一半约克郡人的血统。我不确定哪种情况更糟。

It’s not a very common surname. If this Geneanet heat map has any credibility, the name favours the south of England. That might support the French theory? Liverpool has the highest number of Bushells though. Bushells is also an Australian brand of tea founded by tea dealer Alfred Bushell in 1883. Alfred was born in Worcestershire, England (pronounced: Wrcstrshr).

这不是一个很常见的姓氏。如果这个 Geneanet 热力图有可信度的话，这个名字在英格兰南部更常见。这或许支持了法国理论？不过利物浦的 Bushell 姓氏人数最多。Bushells 也是一个澳大利亚茶叶品牌，由茶叶商 Alfred Bushell 于1883年创立。Alfred 出生于英格兰的伍斯特郡（发音：Wrcstrshr）。

Interestingly, Wikipedia notes: After the Norman conquest of England; the Domesday Book noted in 1086 that in seven of the twelve hundreds covering Worcestershire, the Crown had no authority. The Domesday Book always references Bossall (the Yorkshire hamlet) as Boscele or Bosciale; names that are Anglo Saxon in origin.

有趣的是，维基百科指出：诺曼征服英格兰后，1086年的《末日审判书》记录到，在覆盖伍斯特郡的十二个百户区中，有七个王室没有管辖权。《末日审判书》总是将 Bossall（约克郡的小村庄）称为 Boscele 或 Bosciale；这些名字起源于盎格鲁-撒克逊语。

When I say “Bushell” over the phone my pronunciation is often mistaken for saying “Buchel”. Some sources say they’re from the same Anglo Saxon origin. These distribution maps for Bushell and Buchel cast doubt on that idea (if Forebears data is accurate). “Büchel” also has different origins if you stick an umlaut on it.

当我在电话里说“Bushell”时，我的发音经常被误认为是“Buchel”。一些资料称它们来自同一个盎格鲁-撒克逊起源。这些 Bushell 和 Buchel 的分布图对这一观点提出了质疑（如果 Forebears 的数据准确的话）。如果你在“Büchel”上加个变音符号，它也有不同的起源。

I suspect I’m dealing with multiple different names of Anglo Saxon and Norman origin. There are many spelling variations of “Bushell” and similar names in historic records (though few have survived). Most people were illiterate until recent decades so spelling variations are not surprising. It seems probable to me that whenever families adopted a spelling, a variation from the wrong lineage could’ve been written due to phonetic differences.

我怀疑我面对的是多个源自盎格鲁-撒克逊和诺曼的不同名字。在历史记录中，“Bushell”和类似名字有许多拼写变体（尽管留存下来的很少）。大多数人在近几十年之前都是文盲，所以拼写变体并不令人惊讶。在我看来，很可能每当家庭采用一种拼写时，由于语音差异，可能会写出错误血统的变体。

Even if I traced my ancestry back hundreds of years, I’d likely reach a moment when a scribe wrote “Bushell” in some form and my ancestor just shrugged because he couldn’t read. The etymology of “David” is well known despite being much older. Its roots are Hebrew meaning “beloved” and has found its way across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. D-Bus is “Desktop Bus” if you were too lazy to click the link.

即使我把祖先追溯到几百年前，我也很可能会遇到这样一个时刻：抄写员以某种形式写下了“Bushell”，而我的祖先只是耸耸肩，因为他不识字。“David”的词源虽然更古老，但众所周知。它的词根是希伯来语，意为“被爱的人”，并流传于犹太教、基督教和伊斯兰教中。如果你懒得点击链接，D-Bus 就是“Desktop Bus”（桌面总线）。

What’s in a domain name. Domain names are a strange system. They’re temporary URIs that are leased and inevitably lost. I’ve spent half my life publishing content on dbushell.com. I started using it seriously once I had a design portfolio. If you’re curious you can see past versions at: legacy.dbushell.com.

域名里有什么？域名是一个奇怪的系统。它们是临时的 URI，被租用并最终不可避免地丢失。我花了一半的人生在 dbushell.com 上发布内容。当我有了设计作品集后，我开始认真使用它。如果你好奇，可以在 legacy.dbushell.com 查看过去的版本。

In hindsight if I knew I was going to build a career around my website I’d have chosen something more memorable. Imagine all the common words that were still untouched in 2004? dave.co.uk wasn’t taken until 2005! I don’t actually go by “Dave” myself but like the “D-Bus” thing it’s not my choice to make.

事后看来，如果我知道我会围绕我的网站建立职业生涯，我会选择一个更令人难忘的名字。想象一下2004年还有多少常用词没被注册？dave.co.uk 直到2005年才被注册！我本人其实并不叫“Dave”，但就像“D-Bus”这件事一样，这不是我能选择的。

For a brief moment I did consider moving to another domain. I would have had to maintain redirects forever. It’s not a sensible “SEO” manoeuvre either, if that matters anymore… Now that I’m running my business from valleyfold.co.uk I’m happy I stuck with dbushell.com for my personal space. Anyway, next time you spot the “D-Bus” comment please direct them there! Better yet, take up this blog challenge: write about the etymology behind your name and domain name.

我曾短暂考虑过迁移到另一个域名。但我将不得不永远维护重定向。如果这还有意义的话，这也不是一个明智的“SEO”策略……现在我通过 valleyfold.co.uk 经营我的业务，我很高兴我保留了 dbushell.com 作为我的个人空间。总之，下次当你看到“D-Bus”评论时，请把他们引向这里！更好的是，接受这个博客挑战：写写你名字和域名背后的词源。