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"The Guix System Distribution * Liberating. GuixSD is an advanced distribution of the GNU Operating System developed by the GNU Project —which respects the free

by cwyers 11y ago

"The Guix System Distribution * Liberating. GuixSD is an advanced distribution of the GNU Operating System developed by the GNU Project —which respects the freedom of computer users." GNU Operating System? Has the FSF moved past calling it GNU/Linux to just calling it GNU? Have they switched back to the Hurd? What's going on here?

chriswarbo 11y ago
Guix should hypothetically support Linux, HURD, *BSD, etc. since it's based on Nix. Linux has been the de facto kernel for GNU ever since Linus switch from a non-commercial license to the GPL; at which point HURD became a research project.
davexunit 11y ago
When we refer to the GNU Operating System, we're referring to the entire collection of GNU software. One of GuixSD's goals as an official GNU project is to integrate all GNU software nicely. The distro is GNU/Linux only right now, but Hurd support is being worked on, too. See our "about" page for more info: https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/about/ https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/about/
taylanub 11y ago
This is off-topic but I personally prefer to just say "GNU" these days for what most people call "Linux" (excepting systems that somehow use Linux without GNU of course). It makes sense when you consider that: - GNU has always been a project to make a whole OS, and the name of said OS is GNU. Linux on the other hand is explicitly a project to make a kernel only. When talking about a system consisting of GNU components for everything but the kernel, that would simply be the GNU OS using a third-party kernel. - In terms of components implementing the base Unix system (see e.g. POSIX for a formal description of this "base system"), GNU components and Linux are probably roughly equivalent in size (don't underestimate Glibc and the whole userland Unix toolbox, not to mention compiler toolchain), so just "GNU" might downplay the importance of Linux and thus "GNU/Linux" would be the most correct term, but we all know it's cumbersome especially in speech, and if I'm going to shorten it then GNU is the obvious choice in line with point 1. It certainly makes more sense than "Linux". Some people like to point out that GNU components can be replaced. So can Linux, as evident from e.g. Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, so that's not an argument. You can even use GNU on top of Windows via Cygwin. :-P Of course the reason I bother is that I want GNU to be more widely known. It deserves at least equal respect with Linux if you ask me, yet 98% of everyone I met who had heard of "Linux" never heard of GNU; some knew the GPL but not GNU. And I work at an IT company...
kete 11y ago
Linux-libre is GNU software: https://gnu.org/s/#allgnupkgs https://gnu.org/s/#allgnupkgs

by cwyers 11y ago

chriswarbo 11y ago

Guix should hypothetically support Linux, HURD, *BSD, etc. since it's based on Nix. Linux has been the de facto kernel for GNU ever since Linus switch from a non-commercial license to the GPL; at which point HURD became a research project.

davexunit 11y ago

When we refer to the GNU Operating System, we're referring to the entire collection of GNU software. One of GuixSD's goals as an official GNU project is to integrate all GNU software nicely. The distro is GNU/Linux only right now, but Hurd support is being worked on, too. See our "about" page for more info: https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/about/ https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/about/

taylanub 11y ago

This is off-topic but I personally prefer to just say "GNU" these days for what most people call "Linux" (excepting systems that somehow use Linux without GNU of course). It makes sense when you consider that: - GNU has always been a project to make a whole OS, and the name of said OS is GNU. Linux on the other hand is explicitly a project to make a kernel only. When talking about a system consisting of GNU components for everything but the kernel, that would simply be the GNU OS using a third-party kernel. - In terms of components implementing the base Unix system (see e.g. POSIX for a formal description of this "base system"), GNU components and Linux are probably roughly equivalent in size (don't underestimate Glibc and the whole userland Unix toolbox, not to mention compiler toolchain), so just "GNU" might downplay the importance of Linux and thus "GNU/Linux" would be the most correct term, but we all know it's cumbersome especially in speech, and if I'm going to shorten it then GNU is the obvious choice in line with point 1. It certainly makes more sense than "Linux". Some people like to point out that GNU components can be replaced. So can Linux, as evident from e.g. Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, so that's not an argument. You can even use GNU on top of Windows via Cygwin. :-P Of course the reason I bother is that I want GNU to be more widely known. It deserves at least equal respect with Linux if you ask me, yet 98% of everyone I met who had heard of "Linux" never heard of GNU; some knew the GPL but not GNU. And I work at an IT company...

kete 11y ago

Linux-libre is GNU software: https://gnu.org/s/#allgnupkgs https://gnu.org/s/#allgnupkgs