It’s systemd+gnu+linux these days
Eventually the proper name for the operating system will just be the full configuration.nix file, and we’ll all rename our backups to "FullLegalName"OS
In this future, NixOS replaces all other distros as the defacto standard way to manage packages
If only nix wasn’t such a pain to read, with all the conveniences it has like automatically looking up variables in all of the places available.
I understand the thought, but it feels like a lot of things done to simplify writing the code makes it way harder to read, and nix’s design is decades old and it really shows
Also, there are sometimes issues with nix on macos, but I’m inclined to blame it on Apple
Wayland isn’t actually a piece of software though. It’s a protocol. This isn’t like X11.
I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as GNU/Linux, is in fact, systemd/GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, systemd plus GNU plus Linux. GNU/Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning systemd init system made useful by the systemd daemons, shell utilities and redundant system components comprising a full init system as defined by systemd itself.
Many computer users run a modified version of the systemd init system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of systemd which is widely used today is often called GNU/Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the systemd init system, developed by the Red Hat.
There really is a GNU/Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the init system they use. GNU/Linux is the os: a collection of programs that can be run by the init system. The operating system is an essential part of an init system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete init system. GNU/Linux is normally used in combination with the systemd init system: the whole system is basically systwmd with GNU/Linux added, or systemd/GNU/Linux. All the so-called GNU/Linux distributions are really distributions of systemd/GNU/Linux!
No, Richard, it’s ‘Linux’, not ‘GNU/Linux’. The most important contributions that the FSF made to Linux were the creation of the GPL and the GCC compiler. Those are fine and inspired products. GCC is a monumental achievement and has earned you, RMS, and the Free Software Foundation countless kudos and much appreciation.
Following are some reasons for you to mull over, including some already answered in your FAQ.
One guy, Linus Torvalds, used GCC to make his operating system (yes, Linux is an OS – more on this later). He named it ‘Linux’ with a little help from his friends. Why doesn’t he call it GNU/Linux? Because he wrote it, with more help from his friends, not you. You named your stuff, I named my stuff – including the software I wrote using GCC – and Linus named his stuff. The proper name is Linux because Linus Torvalds says so. Linus has spoken. Accept his authority. To do otherwise is to become a nag. You don’t want to be known as a nag, do you?
(An operating system) != (a distribution). Linux is an operating system. By my definition, an operating system is that software which provides and limits access to hardware resources on a computer. That definition applies whereever you see Linux in use. However, Linux is usually distributed with a collection of utilities and applications to make it easily configurable as a desktop system, a server, a development box, or a graphics workstation, or whatever the user needs. In such a configuration, we have a Linux (based) distribution. Therein lies your strongest argument for the unwieldy title ‘GNU/Linux’ (when said bundled software is largely from the FSF). Go bug the distribution makers on that one. Take your beef to Red Hat, Mandrake, and Slackware. At least there you have an argument. Linux alone is an operating system that can be used in various applications without any GNU software whatsoever. Embedded applications come to mind as an obvious example.
Next, even if we limit the GNU/Linux title to the GNU-based Linux distributions, we run into another obvious problem. XFree86 may well be more important to a particular Linux installation than the sum of all the GNU contributions. More properly, shouldn’t the distribution be called XFree86/Linux? Or, at a minimum, XFree86/GNU/Linux? Of course, it would be rather arbitrary to draw the line there when many other fine contributions go unlisted. Yes, I know you’ve heard this one before. Get used to it. You’ll keep hearing it until you can cleanly counter it.
You seem to like the lines-of-code metric. There are many lines of GNU code in a typical Linux distribution. You seem to suggest that (more LOC) == (more important). However, I submit to you that raw LOC numbers do not directly correlate with importance. I would suggest that clock cycles spent on code is a better metric. For example, if my system spends 90% of its time executing XFree86 code, XFree86 is probably the single most important collection of code on my system. Even if I loaded ten times as many lines of useless bloatware on my system and I never excuted that bloatware, it certainly isn’t more important code than XFree86. Obviously, this metric isn’t perfect either, but LOC really, really sucks. Please refrain from using it ever again in supporting any argument.
Last, I’d like to point out that we Linux and GNU users shouldn’t be fighting among ourselves over naming other people’s software. But what the heck, I’m in a bad mood now. I think I’m feeling sufficiently obnoxious to make the point that GCC is so very famous and, yes, so very useful only because Linux was developed. In a show of proper respect and gratitude, shouldn’t you and everyone refer to GCC as ‘the Linux compiler’? Or at least, ‘Linux GCC’? Seriously, where would your masterpiece be without Linux? Languishing with the HURD?
If there is a moral buried in this rant, maybe it is this:
Be grateful for your abilities and your incredible success and your considerable fame. Continue to use that success and fame for good, not evil. Also, be especially grateful for Linux’ huge contribution to that success. You, RMS, the Free Software Foundation, and GNU software have reached their current high profiles largely on the back of Linux. You have changed the world. Now, go forth and don’t be a nag.
I’m stealing sharing/redistributing this:
Sure, but know there are some spelling mistakes and some lines I didn’t really know the heck I was writing
I made the joke that we’ll have SystemD/Linux replacing GNU/Linux and the number of “well asckuallys…” that popped up was simultaneously humorous and saddening.
https://github.com/uutils/coreutils - I’m waiting for a distro to switch to this, and clang base, and then musl. But glibc compatibility still lacking usually - one day!
What’s the point? Move from a free license to a corporate cuck license is not something that values normal users, only if you are a corporation and you need a more permissive license for some reason
systemd
and a giant “fuck you” to Lennart Poettering for that. Not for creating an init system option - but for lobbying it into major distributions, instead of letting the users decide what they prefer. May he forever stub his toes on furniture.
It’s not just an init system. Look up what it does and why it exists, instead of blindly hating some software for some obsessive reason.
Systemd is also horrible project because it has sd-dbus - a dbus implementation, that requires systemd. And some projects(like Anbox) when migrating from abstraction layer to direct use of dbus accidentally choosen sd-dbus instead of dbus. And devs genuenly belive that sd-dbus is not systemd-specific.
I’m pissed off because he didn’t limit it to just being an init and made it into a much bigger mess
I’m not blindly hating. I despise the asshole responsible for the choice being taken away from me for many major distros and I wish him the plague for his manipulative approach in getting there.
That’s weird as fuck. Major distros use it because it’s the most functional. If the other ones were as good, they’d be used. There is no “lobbying” lol, it just makes the most technical sense and is significantly more than just an init system. I’d rather users have a system that “just works” instead, since arbitrary choices aren’t necessarily a good thing.
wow, I could read and entire book of this. It’s a new genre of erotica I think. Very high quality
Hnng yeah thats right womansplain to me, whip out those big beautiful FACTS and correct me till I BLEED
This is fucking gold
It would seem that GNU/Linux or Linux (whatever the user-accessing operating system is called) is the only OS that must mention its kernel. No one calls Windows the NT operating system, nor does anyone call Mac OS the Darwin operating system. So why should Linux be the exception?
When I think of GNU, I think of a project that had a very particular goal in mind: build an operating system that replaces Unix with entirely free software. The project got nearly all the way there, but before they got a usable kernel working, Torvalds licensed his kernel with the GPL. With the Linux kernel combined with GNU, we have an OS the GNU project set out to create. So why should Torvalds get all the credit? Without calling the OS GNU, most people don’t even know how or why it came to be.
I could see a valid argument to just simply call the OS GNU. It was the name the original team gave the project to have a fully functional OS made with entirely free software. True, Torvalds didn’t write Linux for GNU, but neither did the X Window System. A Kernel is essential for operation though, so I can see why the name GNU/Linux was proposed.
Maybe it just boils down to “Linux” simply sounding better when pronounced
Just like e.g. most people just say “velcro” and not “hook-and-loop” as the company Velcro itself wants people to call it.
And that’s a tragedy because that convenience of pronunciation comes with the cost of losing credit for the group that started the whole thing. Because only “Linux” is used, many people think Linus Torvalds developed/invented the entire operating system.
Hook and loop being called Velcro doesn’t hurt Velcro the same way because they still have all the credit for making it. The only problem they face is losing a trademark.
Perhaps it is a tragedy that we seem to have lost the GNU part. But in the end, the great unwashed masses get to decide what something is called.
Personally, I blame the Brits for this, (and NOT the French this time), because of their penchant for trying to chop every multi-syllable word down into as few as possible. See: Football vs Soccer silliness.
“The OS” doesn’t exist. The operating systems you’re talking about are called Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, Fedora, RHEL, etc etc. The main work of making an actually usable OS from the various free software components others have written has always been done by the teams responsible for these products.
But we still need a way to refer to them collectively, and it used to make sense to call them “Linux” because they were pretty much the only operating systems that used the Linux kernel, but now that Android is the most widely used OS on the planet, it doesn’t anymore, and this alone is a reason to say GNU/Linux unless you want to include Android.
I understand distributions (Debian, Arch, etc.) are what users will use. But those distributions have a foundation to build off of (that’s what I’m referring to when I say OS), and that foundation most distributions use is GNU and Linux.
GNU came first, and the final piece of the missing puzzle was Linux. Adding in Linux shouldn’t overshadow all the incredible work the GNU project took over 7 years to create.
Android is a different issue, although it certainly puts a hole in the logic of calling the desktop OS Linux. “[Android] contains Linux, but it isn’t Linux.”
This is a rabbit hole. Most software packages out there use hundreds of modules with other names. Heck, I bet the client you are using would require 27 different slashes for this to make sense.
Sometimes you put a lot of work into a foundation. Sometimes you use a foundation. Pride in one’s work does not always require recognition.
But the Linux kernel was central to the advent of FOSS operating systems. If it were up to the GNU project we’d still not have a working OS. It’s unfair to speculate because maybe the BSD family would have taken over but it’s worth mentioning that Stallman also passed up on the BSD kernel as well. So, really, the GNU userland had to be dragged into widespread success against its goals.
Also, it’s a lot easier to replicate a basic userland than it is to get a working OS going. I think Linux would have done well even without the GNU utils but the opposite is demonstrably not true.
Because the thing people refer to when they say “linux” is not actually an operating system. It is a family of operating systems built by different groups that are built mostly the same way from mostly the same components (which, themselves are built by separate groups).
If I’m not mistaken, you’re talking about distributions. When I write ‘operating system’, I’m referring to a collection of programs that provide a set of utility for a user, such as file manipulation, the ability to compile other programs, etc. Distributions expand on that functionality by configuring everything, providing other programs, and methods to install more. But they mostly build off a common framework, the operating system. Linux is a component of that system that provides the framework. Should it get all the credit for doing so? Personally, I don’t think so.
