I think the 'distribution' concept mostly exists because Linux is just a kernel - I consider the whole thing the OS, especially given apt-get is how I mostly ge

I think the 'distribution' concept mostly exists because Linux is just a kernel - I consider the whole thing the OS, especially given apt-get is how I mostly get my kernels. To my mind, Slackware is an OS that chooses not to ship something of the order of apt-get, rather than separating 'OS' from 'distribution'. But given you're (by default) booting Debian's choice of Linux kernel, and Debian's choice of userland, all tied together by the dependency resolution of Debian's shipped package manager, which is what provided you with said kernel ... I still think calling it a third-party tool is silly. Or at least, I see Debian as the first-party rather than Linux here, and I think the fact that your way of looking at it is ... well, "not how I commonly see things regarded" ... the problem wasn't so much dishonesty as a complete failure to realise you were using a different communication protocol. Never attribute to dishonesty that which can be adequately explained by terminology mismatches :)