4 ms·

>Well at least I thought so Android and ChromeOS are Marketplace-(App) Runtime NOT a Linux Distro >The Linux foundation for example, thinks Android is a Linux

• alkonaut 6y ago
  What are the criteria required for an OS using the Linux kernel to be called a “distribution” then? Including GNU or free software in the definition seems arbitrary... Is there a class of applications (that aren’t apps from a store) that must be runnable? Or do you mean that distro is short for “GNU/Linux distribution”? I’m not arguing for/against (since it’s obviously a long-standing debate), what I’m interested in is the criteria for what makes something a distro.
  • pjmlp 6y ago
    Yes, a distro implies GNU/Linux. Neither ChromeOS nor Android expose the Linux kernel directly to userspace apps, so for them is irrelevant what kernel is being used.
    • nix23 6y ago
      >Yes, a distro implies GNU/Linux Or BSD ;)
      • pjmlp 6y ago
        Not sure if the same applies, given that BSDs don't even share the same kernel code or overall architecture, and they are created as old style UNIX, meaning each BSD caters for everything across all stack.
        • nix23 6y ago
          >given that BSDs don't even share the same kernel code or overall architecture Why is that not a Distribution, it's not a Gnu/Linux Distribution true, but it's one for sure. You know what BSD means? Berkeley Software Distribution >meaning each BSD caters for everything across all stack Like every "real" Linux Distribution
          • pjmlp 6y ago
            Fair enough if you put it like that.
    • alkonaut 6y ago
      "a distro implies GNU/Linux" So you mean your definition is "distro" is slang for "GNU/Linux distribution", whereas an os using the linux kernel is not necessarily a "Linux distribution"? Or can it be a "Linux distribution" without being a "distro"?
      • pjmlp 6y ago
        I use Linux distributions since Slackware 2.0, it is hardly my definition, rather something that I have read somewhere on Usenet or while reading Linux Journal. Goinng back to Android and ChromeOS. On Android, NDK states very clerarly what are the APIs available to userspace applications written in C and C++, and none of them are Linux syscalls. Additionally everything outside of the application's installation directory is forbidden. Starting with Android 7, Google has started to introduce security measures that kill applications that try to work around the rules. Likewise on ChromeOS, applications are written with the Web stack, ART running on its container and same access rules, with Crostini running on top of a container, using its own kernel and talking to the ChromeOS in a way similar to WSL2 on Windows. Hence why applications like Termux have several limitations and workarounds to fake being on Linux, and going forward they may not even work anymore, because they refuse to use Java to access the features that Google forbids direct access to the NDK. So hardly a Linux distribuition.
        • alkonaut 6y ago
          Thanks. Requiring that userland apps can access the Linux kernel “normally” is a good definition of what it means to be a Linux OS. It seems like a much less arbitrary definition than requiring the presence of specific GNU parts.