Hey, just, uh, wanted to clear the air a bit. You know when you’re saying “Linux,” what you’re probably referring to is what some folks call “GNU plus Linux,” if you really want to get into the weeds of it. But don’t sweat it, alright? I’m not here to be a buzzkill or anything.
See, what we call “Linux” is actually just a part of the whole thing, man. It’s the kernel, the core, the… engine, you could say, of the operating system. But the GNU stuff, that’s the body of the car, the seats, the steering wheel. You need both to take a drive, you know?
But look, it’s not a big deal. We’re all just trying to get from point A to point B, right? So, whether you’re saying “Linux” or “GNU plus Linux”, it doesn’t change the journey. It’s just semantics.
Sure, I get it. Richard Stallman and the gang over at the Free Software Foundation, they put in a lot of effort into the GNU software, and I respect that. But sometimes you gotta go with the flow, man. And right now, that flow is “Linux”. It’s simpler, it’s what people know, and frankly, it’s the Linux kernel that’s making the whole thing work in the first place.
So next time you want to get technical, feel free to drop a “GNU plus Linux”. Stallman would probably give you a nod of approval. But if you’re just chilling out, hanging back, and you say “Linux”… well, it’s all good, man. Linux is just Linux. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
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I use Android, or as I like to call it “Google Surveillance plus Linux”
I thought I was a filthy windows user lyrking in better lands. But I use GrapheneOS which is Android minus Google Surveillance, which is Linux plus Google Surveillance minus Google Surveillance. Isn’t that just Linux? Am I a proper member now?
“I use Linux as my operating system,” I state proudly to the > > unkempt, bearded man. He swivels around in his desk chair > > with a devilish gleam in his eyes, ready to mansplain with > extreme precision. “Actually,” he says with a grin, “Linux is just > the kernel. you use GNU+Linux.” I don’t miss a beat and reply > with a smirk, “I use alpine, a distro that doesn’t include the > GNU coreutils, or any other GNU code. It’s Linux, but it’s not > GNU+Linux.”
The smile quickly drops from the man’s face. His body begins > convulsing and he foams at the mouth as he drop to the floor > > with a sickly thud. As he writhes around he screams “I-IT > WAS COMPILED WITH GCC! THAT MEANS IT’S STILL GNU!” > Coolly, I reply “if windows was compiled with gcc, would that > make it GNU?” I interrupt his response with “and work is being > made on the kernel to make it more compiler-agnostic. Even > if you were correct, you won’t be for long.”
With a sickly wheeze, the last of the man’s life is ejected from > his body. he lies on the floor, cold and limp. I’ve > womansplained him to death.
This is a very good advert for alpine Linux
Does anyone actually use it as their main desktop though? Thought it was designed for containers and lightweight systems
I have it on my main desktop, works well, but I have to containerize a few things that do not build with musl.
Babe, wake up, the new copy pasta just dropped.
Holy C!
Linux is a single word everyone recognises and understands, gnu/Linux sounds dumb and precocious because you’re not going to refer to android as android/Linux, that would be silly
it’s the famous copypasta reply to the usual “let me interject” copypasta. But this time it was given to chatGPT for a rewrite. pathetic
Stallman only gives nods of approval to 15 year old girls or younger now. The less they wear the better.
I only use Linux command line. Does that count?
“I use Mac OS X, or as I would like to call it, Apple+BSD&&GNU Mach”
If we really want to get technical, Stallman doesn’t get to name someone else’s baby and he’s a huge man baby for attempting to take credit for the Linux kernel.
I own a Steam Deck, that makes me a professional computer code writey guy, right? Arch (based) amirite? Hahaaa, greetings fellow Linux heads
The correct decorum is:
“I use Arch btw”.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think it’s silly to name everything that comprises your OS. I’m on Garuda (Arch) and I use e.g. dracut, btrfs and systemd, yet I’m not saying I’m on “Garuda, it’s based on Arch, shout out to Red Hat, @ GNU/Linux”. I’m also on PipeWire, which is very awesome and I tell people how awesome it is, but I don’t have to do this 24/7.
If you’re talking distro naming, fine. Maybe it would be nice by the distributors to name the work they base theirs on. And I think they all do to some extend, just not in their name.
If Arch decides to call itself “Arch GNU/Linux”, I would totally support it. If Garuda wants to call itself “Garuda Arch”, fine by me. Just don’t expect me to say anything more than “Arch” or “Garuda” in a casual conversation. Because the people who know know, the people who care will ask, and the people who don’t care don’t care. Everyone in between is an insignificant edgecase
