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I think calling it an OS might be a stretch. "Linux distribution" is perhaps a little more accurate.

beachstartup 12y ago
i think it's standard practice to call a linux distro an OS. centos does it, so does debian ("the universal operating system"), and more recently, coreos.
- agwa 12y ago
  The most obvious example of why Debian is an OS, not a "Linux distro," is because you can install the kfreebsd architecture and then you're not using Linux at all.
  - beachstartup 12y ago
    right, but - is a linux distribution not an operating system? ever?
dragonwriter 12y ago
A Linux distribution is an OS. Its an OS that shares considerable code and features with other related OS's, but that's true, e.g., of say "Windows" with respect to "Windows Server", which I think most people would agree are, in fact, OS's.
awalton 12y ago
Honestly, it might be time to put the pejorative term "Linux distribution" to death. It was pretty true when there was Slackware and Debian, but the we're not talking about two stalks off of the same evolutionary branch anymore, but an entire ecosystem of different animals. Modern "distributions" ship with vastly different libcs (bionic, newer vs older glibc, muslc), different userland runtimes (busybox, "GNU/Linux" with core utils, etc), different compilers (various branches of gcc, llvm increasingly), different init systems (SysV, upstart, systemd, etc), different security frameworks (AppArmor, SELinux), different display servers (X, Wayland, unfortunately Mir and SurfaceFlinger) and vastly different UIs (from Android, to GNOME and its fragmentations, to KDE and its fragmentations, LXDE and XFCE, and so forth). You can't even bet on the file system hierarchy being the same anymore, with aberrations like NixOS running around. The saddest part is that Linux is the most some of these operating systems have in common, and these days it can easily have the least overall impact on most of the users. These things are completely different animals, loosely bound by design contracts like FreeDesktop.org's various specs and Linux Standard Base specs which everyone violates in new and unique ways. Not treating these operating systems as entirely different entities is being at best dishonest, and at worst is costing millions, perhaps even hundreds of millions of dollars in effort across the industry. You can't honestly target "Linux" as a platform because it's not a platform. If you've maintained, or especially if you've distributed any piece of software on "Linux" these days, you've seen the horrors.
- desdiv 12y ago
  What do you propose we call it then? Not being snarky, I'm really looking for a sensible alternative descriptor here.
- broodbucket 12y ago
  >unfortunately Mir and SurfaceFlinger I don't know anything about SurfaceFlinger, but why do you call out Mir here after referencing a vast amount of other components of a Linux distribution that all essentially do the same thing? Who knows, Mir could turn out better than Wayland. Weird how everyone's happy for an abundance of choice, except when it's a display server or init system. Those two generate so much hate and I don't really get why.

i think it's standard practice to call a linux distro an OS. centos does it, so does debian ("the universal operating system"), and more recently, coreos.

agwa 12y ago
The most obvious example of why Debian is an OS, not a "Linux distro," is because you can install the kfreebsd architecture and then you're not using Linux at all.
- beachstartup 12y ago
  right, but - is a linux distribution not an operating system? ever?

dragonwriter 12y ago

A Linux distribution is an OS. Its an OS that shares considerable code and features with other related OS's, but that's true, e.g., of say "Windows" with respect to "Windows Server", which I think most people would agree are, in fact, OS's.

awalton 12y ago

Honestly, it might be time to put the pejorative term "Linux distribution" to death. It was pretty true when there was Slackware and Debian, but the we're not talking about two stalks off of the same evolutionary branch anymore, but an entire ecosystem of different animals. Modern "distributions" ship with vastly different libcs (bionic, newer vs older glibc, muslc), different userland runtimes (busybox, "GNU/Linux" with core utils, etc), different compilers (various branches of gcc, llvm increasingly), different init systems (SysV, upstart, systemd, etc), different security frameworks (AppArmor, SELinux), different display servers (X, Wayland, unfortunately Mir and SurfaceFlinger) and vastly different UIs (from Android, to GNOME and its fragmentations, to KDE and its fragmentations, LXDE and XFCE, and so forth). You can't even bet on the file system hierarchy being the same anymore, with aberrations like NixOS running around. The saddest part is that Linux is the most some of these operating systems have in common, and these days it can easily have the least overall impact on most of the users. These things are completely different animals, loosely bound by design contracts like FreeDesktop.org's various specs and Linux Standard Base specs which everyone violates in new and unique ways. Not treating these operating systems as entirely different entities is being at best dishonest, and at worst is costing millions, perhaps even hundreds of millions of dollars in effort across the industry. You can't honestly target "Linux" as a platform because it's not a platform. If you've maintained, or especially if you've distributed any piece of software on "Linux" these days, you've seen the horrors.

desdiv 12y ago
What do you propose we call it then? Not being snarky, I'm really looking for a sensible alternative descriptor here.
broodbucket 12y ago
>unfortunately Mir and SurfaceFlinger I don't know anything about SurfaceFlinger, but why do you call out Mir here after referencing a vast amount of other components of a Linux distribution that all essentially do the same thing? Who knows, Mir could turn out better than Wayland. Weird how everyone's happy for an abundance of choice, except when it's a display server or init system. Those two generate so much hate and I don't really get why.