• WastedJobe@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    Ackchually my OS is GNU/Linux/systemd/Gnome/Fedora/Wayland/dnf/flatpak or something, did I forget one? idgaf

    • tetris11@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Colleague:
      “I need to use Linux and my boyfriend suggested I use Ubuntu, is that right?”

      Me (screaming internally, deciding on whether to rant on bloatware, on Canonical, on reproducibility, on monetization, on many things wrong with the world, but not wanting to come off as an elitist, nor scare her off the idea altogether):
      “… that, that should be fine.”

      • Camelbeard@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I would say use Mint, I think nowadays that’s the better beginner distro. Actually it’s also kind of the pro-user distro. Fiddling around to tweak everything and get it just right is fun in your 20s, but when you need to work, have kids and a wife mint is fine 😛

  • laurelraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    I still don’t get why a toolchain that can be replaced but never was able to make a stable kernel of its own after twenty years should get top billing in the name of the OS. A lot of that stuff was left in the dust, its relevance to the system grows smaller each year while the Linux kernel is the only reason they were ever able to make a complete OS in the first place.

    Hardly anyone uses GNU without Linux; way more people use Linux without GNU than with it.

    Plus, the community at large has decided long ago that the name is just Linux… Does it matter that that’s the name of the kernel? No. Windows and MacOS aren’t named after their kernels, or their toolchains, or any other component.

    Anyway, there wasn’t an OS until there was Linux to bring it all together.

    • rambaroo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The argument would be that on Linux, the majority of user-facing interactions are with GNU software, not the kernel.

      Also, without GNU, Linux probably wouldn’t even exist, at last not in its current form. GNU was already a mature toolchain when Linus started working on Linux. So it’s all well and good to point out that Linux can get pulled out and combined with other toolchain, but you can say the same with GNU. It’s out there running with BSD and Darwin. And BSD might not have a ton of direct users, but it’s extremely important for servers.

      You don’t need Linux to run a free operating system, which was the goal of GNU, it really doesn’t matter that Hurd was never completed. The goal was achieved so there hasn’t been much incentive to develop Hurd.

      I personally don’t care what people call it, but I do think GNU deserves the recognition. Especially because some of their tools are extremely important, like gcc. Linux might not exist if gnu hadn’t provided a functional toolset for an operating system. Hell if it wasn’t for GNU, we might not have a free OS at all.

      • laurelraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        Without GNU, we’d probably be using variants of FreeBSD or similar, possibly even porting that toolchain to run on Linux kernel… I mean, their contribution was important, but so were a lot of other people and projects

    • Queue@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 year ago

      Even now with more eyes on GNU, Herd still isn’t a serious kernel. BSD has more users and support than GNU Herd.

      I thank the GNU community for making wonderful tools and making libre software possible, but it doesn’t exactly deserve top billing.

      Linux without GNU can live, with BusyBox or Android. GNU without Linux would have never taken off. Though I’m curious if in another timeline without GNU, Linux might not have taken off, as GNU had all the tools but no kernel.

      • rambaroo@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Well we have Linux as the kernel now, and with linux-libre and FreeBSD there’s no real need for another kernel. So no reason for anyone to invest in it. I do think Hurd is kind of interesting conceptually, and it’s at a point where you can actually run it now.

        And yeah, without GNU, I’m not convinced Linus would’ve bothered with Linux. GNU was off the ground long before Linux was production ready.

        • laurelraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          1 year ago

          Linus didn’t write Linux for GNU, though, he wrote it as a response to Minix which, if memory serves, was written by one of his professors and took a hard minimalist approach for teaching purposes and Linus wanted to make something actually practical.

          Hell, it had to be adapted to work with GNU (or GNU adapted to work with Linux, I don’t remember which) so, if GNU’s absence meant Linus didn’t write his kernel, it would have been a very indirect result

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Linus is the one who got a workable thing out in the public’s hands. He didn’t even want to name it Linux, but someone came up with that name and it stuck.

      The GNU project did a lot of great things, but ultimately they weren’t able to get a full-fledged operating system out that people could use, so they lost the opportunity to name it. It really shouldn’t matter to them though. GNU is well known, its philosophies are critical to how the free software and open source communities work, it was basically a massive success in the way almost no other volunteer non-commercial projects ever are.

      But tagging “GNU/” in front of Linux is dumb.

      • librechad@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I don’t think tagging GNU in front of Linux is dumb, people wouldn’t care to figure out who they are and what its about if they didn’t do that. You have to give credit to both of them. I still would want GNU there, even if I don’t say it most of the time. I call it Linux mostly but sometimes I call it GNU plus Linux just to be accurate.

  • Lexi@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    You know what? I’m gonna fucking say it, GNU is a shitty name and that’s why no one uses it! Most people don’t care about credit or accuracy, Linux is just infinitely better than GNU/anything or even just GNU on its own.

  • shrugal@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Linux is a name, not a description of the parts. It can mean just the kernel, or the entire family of operating systems, depending on the context.

    It’s what we settled on, and there is no point in debating the name unless there is a real problem with it.

    • MooseBoys@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Right? Most of the time when I build linux I’m not using GNU because of its burdensome license. Realistically you usually don’t need most of the binaries anyway, and those you do like echo and ls are trivial to reimplement, at least for their common functionality.

    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      That might be difficult.

      Linux was made to run GNU software, and is borderline part of GNU. GNU, likewise, is made open, much like the Linux kernel, so it can run on anything.

      I don’t know of any software designed for the Linux kernel that doesn’t also expect GNU.

      Look, all I’m saying is that the two are very strongly bonded, like hydrogen and oxygen in a molecule of water. It would take a lot of energy to separate them. Adding to them is pretty trivial, there’s a lot of things that are water soluble by default, but without specific conditions and a lot of energy, they won’t seperate easily.

      Honestly, I think the only OS I know of that’s the closest to being Linux but not GNU, is Android.

      • dukk@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        Alpine Linux exists. But yeah, most of these projects pretty much do the same thing as their GNU counterparts, just outside the license.

      • bruhduh@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Wayland can’t run on BSD as I’ve heard so GNU can’t run on anything, i may be wrong though, because my source is posts on internet, but as I’ve heard BSD users want x-server support to continue

  • Abnorc@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    It’s all semantics. In my mind, the OS is Tux Racer, and the kernel is Ubuntu.

  • Chemical Wonka@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux

    • frippa@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I’d like to interject for a moment, what you are referring to as Mexico is in fact the United States of Mexico.  A Federation Republic comprised of 31 free and sovereign States each with its own constitution, judiciary, and democratically election Congressional entity.   The 31 individual and unique States form a Federation consisting of a bilateral Congress consisting of a Republic Senate and a Chamber of Deputies entrusted with creation of law,  imposing taxes,  ratifying treaties and international diplomacy.  The Federal entity is further comprised of an Executive wing charged with enforcing the laws,  emergency dictation and commanding the military.  The third and final wing is a Judicial entity consisting of regional courts and a High Court of 11 jurist charged with interpreting any discrepancies that may between the Sovreign States or within the Law itself

      • desconectado@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        So you can say Yucatan is Mexico, the same way Ubuntu is Linux. Or the same way people say Windows, instead of Microsoft Windows NT.

        OP is technically correct, but that’s not how people express themselves in real life, there’s an unspoken understanding in the community that when someone says Linux (when talking in a general sense), there’s no way they are referring to the kernel only.

  • HStone32@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Why do you guys insist on calling it GNU/Linux? It’d be like if you called your car a V8, and some weirdo insists you call it “transmission/V8”

  • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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    1 year ago

    Just to be clear:

    It was actually the young guy throwing the chair in the show. His text is supposed to be saying something angrily at that panel.

    • laurelraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, that part of this meme didn’t make sense to me because of that… Like, he goes from calmly saying no big deal to yelling and throwing a chair in the middle of it for no reason?