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While I have no opinion either way, the argument for GNU/Linux is not due to using the GNU toolchain. The argument is that it's the GNU userland and Linux ker

by dsp1234 10y ago

While I have no opinion either way, the argument for GNU/Linux is not due to using the GNU toolchain. The argument is that it's the GNU userland and Linux kernel, thus GNU/Linux. There are very few (just android?) distributions that don't use the GNU userland[0]. [0] - https://www.gnu.org/software/software.en.html https://www.gnu.org/software/software.en.html

gregmac 10y ago
Not according to this article: > The operating system in which Linux is used is basically GNU with Linux added. I'm not sure how you lump all distros into a single "operating system". And anyway, I'm not sure what the point of this argument is anyway. Why stop at the GNU userland? An OS with only GNU userland and the kernel would be nearly useless, so there's a lot more to it than that. "Please stop saying GNU/Linux. It's really KDE[1] with some GNU programs and Linux kernel tacked on". "Please stop saying KDE/GNU/Linux; your OS is really just Firefox[1] with some other apps, utilities and a kernel somewhere underneath." [1] Insert your favorite desktop/shell/browser if appropriate.
- verandaguy 10y ago
  Thanks for following up with the point that these things could stack almost indefinitely. It's hypocritical to put GNU at the forefront when, obviously, the kernel alone would be totally useless except as a portable-ish interface to talk to hardware and process syscalls with very little abstraction. -- Sent from my <textarea>/HTML/Hacker News/Gecko/Firefox/GNOME/GNU/Linux
- belorn 10y ago
  > I'm not sure how you lump all distros into a single "operating system". I think a lot of people agree there and don't do that. My machine is running Debian, not "linux", and the fact is that the kernel is just one of many packages which can be replaced. It holds no more special places on my machine than Emacs, GNU or Firefox. The problem comes when people want to lump together several operative systems under the same umbrella. We could call them Unix systems, Linux distributions, GNU/Linux, and even systemd-based distributions, and it is a solution to a problem that I find unnecessary inflammatory and over debated.
amyjess 10y ago
Nowadays, the programs most users interact with on a day-to-day basis aren't GNU. For example, my graphical environment comes from X.org and KDE. And I spend a lot of time in my web browser, which doesn't come from GNU, either: that's either Chromium (code by Google) or Pale Moon (fork of code by Mozilla). Keep in mind that modern web browsers are full-fledged virtual machines that run applications developed by thousands of organizations all across the globe. On the command line, my shell is zsh. The servers I run come from organizations like the Apache Software Foundation (httpd) and OpenBSD (openssh). Most of the hobbyist dev work I do is in Python, which certainly isn't GNU. While many of the command-line utilities I use do come from GNU, you could probably swap most of them out for BusyBox and it'd take a while for me to notice. That leaves, what, gcc? Well, even that isn't safe what with clang gaining traction and all... At a high level, GNU is irrelevant. And thanks to systemd, the init system is now closely coupled to so many functions of the system that systemd-based distributions and non-systemd distributions are wildly different. A kFreeBSD distribution using GNU "userland" and a traditional init system feels wildly different from a Linux distribution using GNU "userland" and systemd. Really, systemd vs. sysvinit makes far more difference than glibc vs. some other libc. We're reaching a point where the init system is what makes different OSes feel different at a low level, not the CLI utilities and the libc. So if GNU is irrelevant from both a user-interactive level and a core system level, then how is it relevant?
- lisivka 10y ago
  Remove GNU glibc, then, because you use Firefox, not GNU glibc.

by dsp1234 10y ago

gregmac 10y ago

Not according to this article: > The operating system in which Linux is used is basically GNU with Linux added. I'm not sure how you lump all distros into a single "operating system". And anyway, I'm not sure what the point of this argument is anyway. Why stop at the GNU userland? An OS with only GNU userland and the kernel would be nearly useless, so there's a lot more to it than that. "Please stop saying GNU/Linux. It's really KDE[1] with some GNU programs and Linux kernel tacked on". "Please stop saying KDE/GNU/Linux; your OS is really just Firefox[1] with some other apps, utilities and a kernel somewhere underneath." [1] Insert your favorite desktop/shell/browser if appropriate.

verandaguy 10y ago
Thanks for following up with the point that these things could stack almost indefinitely. It's hypocritical to put GNU at the forefront when, obviously, the kernel alone would be totally useless except as a portable-ish interface to talk to hardware and process syscalls with very little abstraction. -- Sent from my <textarea>/HTML/Hacker News/Gecko/Firefox/GNOME/GNU/Linux
belorn 10y ago
> I'm not sure how you lump all distros into a single "operating system". I think a lot of people agree there and don't do that. My machine is running Debian, not "linux", and the fact is that the kernel is just one of many packages which can be replaced. It holds no more special places on my machine than Emacs, GNU or Firefox. The problem comes when people want to lump together several operative systems under the same umbrella. We could call them Unix systems, Linux distributions, GNU/Linux, and even systemd-based distributions, and it is a solution to a problem that I find unnecessary inflammatory and over debated.

amyjess 10y ago

Nowadays, the programs most users interact with on a day-to-day basis aren't GNU. For example, my graphical environment comes from X.org and KDE. And I spend a lot of time in my web browser, which doesn't come from GNU, either: that's either Chromium (code by Google) or Pale Moon (fork of code by Mozilla). Keep in mind that modern web browsers are full-fledged virtual machines that run applications developed by thousands of organizations all across the globe. On the command line, my shell is zsh. The servers I run come from organizations like the Apache Software Foundation (httpd) and OpenBSD (openssh). Most of the hobbyist dev work I do is in Python, which certainly isn't GNU. While many of the command-line utilities I use do come from GNU, you could probably swap most of them out for BusyBox and it'd take a while for me to notice. That leaves, what, gcc? Well, even that isn't safe what with clang gaining traction and all... At a high level, GNU is irrelevant. And thanks to systemd, the init system is now closely coupled to so many functions of the system that systemd-based distributions and non-systemd distributions are wildly different. A kFreeBSD distribution using GNU "userland" and a traditional init system feels wildly different from a Linux distribution using GNU "userland" and systemd. Really, systemd vs. sysvinit makes far more difference than glibc vs. some other libc. We're reaching a point where the init system is what makes different OSes feel different at a low level, not the CLI utilities and the libc. So if GNU is irrelevant from both a user-interactive level and a core system level, then how is it relevant?

lisivka 10y ago
Remove GNU glibc, then, because you use Firefox, not GNU glibc.