• nUbee@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    It would seem that GNU/Linux or Linux (whatever the user-accessing operating system is called) is the only OS that must mention its kernel. No one calls Windows the NT operating system, nor does anyone call Mac OS the Darwin operating system. So why should Linux be the exception?

    When I think of GNU, I think of a project that had a very particular goal in mind: build an operating system that replaces Unix with entirely free software. The project got nearly all the way there, but before they got a usable kernel working, Torvalds licensed his kernel with the GPL. With the Linux kernel combined with GNU, we have an OS the GNU project set out to create. So why should Torvalds get all the credit? Without calling the OS GNU, most people don’t even know how or why it came to be.

    I could see a valid argument to just simply call the OS GNU. It was the name the original team gave the project to have a fully functional OS made with entirely free software. True, Torvalds didn’t write Linux for GNU, but neither did the X Window System. A Kernel is essential for operation though, so I can see why the name GNU/Linux was proposed.

    • bravesirrbn ☑️@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Maybe it just boils down to “Linux” simply sounding better when pronounced

      Just like e.g. most people just say “velcro” and not “hook-and-loop” as the company Velcro itself wants people to call it.

    • lemmyvore@feddit.nl
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      6 months ago

      But the Linux kernel was central to the advent of FOSS operating systems. If it were up to the GNU project we’d still not have a working OS. It’s unfair to speculate because maybe the BSD family would have taken over but it’s worth mentioning that Stallman also passed up on the BSD kernel as well. So, really, the GNU userland had to be dragged into widespread success against its goals.

      Also, it’s a lot easier to replicate a basic userland than it is to get a working OS going. I think Linux would have done well even without the GNU utils but the opposite is demonstrably not true.

    • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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      6 months ago

      “The OS” doesn’t exist. The operating systems you’re talking about are called Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, Fedora, RHEL, etc etc. The main work of making an actually usable OS from the various free software components others have written has always been done by the teams responsible for these products.

      But we still need a way to refer to them collectively, and it used to make sense to call them “Linux” because they were pretty much the only operating systems that used the Linux kernel, but now that Android is the most widely used OS on the planet, it doesn’t anymore, and this alone is a reason to say GNU/Linux unless you want to include Android.

      • iopq@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I don’t use those, I select my own components using SystemD OS.

        Like my configuration actually has to specify whether I’m using gnome or KDE, nothing is “by default” in my distro except for SystemD

          • Eufalconimorph@discuss.tchncs.de
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            6 months ago

            Sure, I should have gone further.

            Systemd/GNU libc/GNU Coreutils/GNU BASH/Linux/X11//GTK/GNOME
            Systemd/GNU libc/GNU Coreutils/GNU BASH/Linux/X11/GTK/LXDE
            Systemd/GNU libc/GNU Coreutils/Zsh/Linux/X11/GTK/GNOME
            Systemd/GNU libc/GNU Coreutils/Zsh/Linux/X11/GTK/LXDE
            SysVInit/musl/Busybox/tcsh/Linux/csh
            Systemd/GNU libc/GNU Coreutils/Zsh/Linux/Wayland/QT/KDE Plasma
            Systemd/GNU libc/GNU Coreutils/Zsh/Linux/Wayland/QT/LXQT

            etc, etc.

            There are thousands of combinations of the possible layers needed to make an OS.

            • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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              6 months ago

              the thing is that not all of them use systemd or bash or zsh or even X11 (servers don’t usually have X11 installed)

              All of them use a Linux kernel and many components that were originally developed for GNU, especially the C library.

              • Eufalconimorph@discuss.tchncs.de
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                6 months ago

                Except Alpine & those based on it, which uses Linux but not GNU libc or GNU coreutils or GNU BASH… Just musl libc & Busybox. I.e. the entire subject of this thread is one of the non-GNU Linuxes.