Why is GNU/Linux still a thing? What’s the GNU bit of Linux?
what people call "Linux" is much more "GNU" (system tools, commands, shell, system programms, libraries, stadards, conventions) and less "Linux" (only the kernel).
How many GNU/Linux users are needed to change a light bulb?
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Re: How many GNU/Linux users are needed to change a light bulb?
#12Why is GNU/Linux still a thing? What’s the GNU bit of Linux?
Glibc which is linked by everything in userspace.
Android is Linux but not usually gnu-linux as no glibc.
Do any of the major distros use musl or any other libc in a meaningful way?
Re: How many GNU/Linux users are needed to change a light bulb?
#13Why is GNU/Linux still a thing? What’s the GNU bit of Linux?
Only almost everything of the programs (ls, grep, bash, gcc, etc). Linux is just the kernel. Stallman lead development of most of the shell environment you use today.
Given that the kernel will/could expect to work without the programs, more or less, why it isn't Linux/GNU then.
Linux is a kernel, the rest are just a programs.
Re: How many GNU/Linux users are needed to change a light bulb?
#14Why is GNU/Linux still a thing? What’s the GNU bit of Linux?
Glibc which is linked by everything in userspace. Android is Linux but not usually gnu-linux as no glibc. Do any of the major distros use musl or any other libc in a meaningful way?
> Do any of the major distros use musl or any other libc in a meaningful way?
I'm playing with voidlinux/musl in a virtual machine and it's pretty neat. Just found a couple of non-posix-isms in my programs thanks to that.
Re: How many GNU/Linux users are needed to change a light bulb?
#15Why is GNU/Linux still a thing? What’s the GNU bit of Linux?
Only most if not all of the software after you boot the kernel.
Re: How many GNU/Linux users are needed to change a light bulb?
#16Why is GNU/Linux still a thing? What’s the GNU bit of Linux?
Yes, the name is a bit cumbersome. I simply call my operating system "GNU", no need to specify the kernel. Paired with a neat interface (black xterm on a solid black background without panel nor window decorations), people walk confusedly by my computer and ask: what's that wicked system of yours? And I say: "That's the GNU operating system, man!" It never ceases to cause a stir.
You forgot "and everyone clapped".
Re: How many GNU/Linux users are needed to change a light bulb?
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only almost everything of the programs (ls, grep, bash, gcc, etc). Linux is just the kernel. Stallman lead development of most of the shell environment you use today.
Given that the kernel will/could expect to work without the programs, more or less, why it isn't Linux/GNU then. Linux is a kernel, the rest are just a programs.
The programs do the useful work, the rest is just the kernel.
Re: How many GNU/Linux users are needed to change a light bulb?
#18Why is GNU/Linux still a thing? What’s the GNU bit of Linux?
Grep, ls, bash, (g)awk, grub, gcc, make, gzip, tar, time, plotutils, gimp, gnome, emacs and many, many other things
I don't want to diminish rms and gnu's work in progressing software freedom and these programs are of course big contributions to a lot of Linux systems. However, I use i3 instead of gnome, systemd isn't a part of gnu, I also use Firefox instead of Epiphany.
Should I refer to my system as gnu/i3/systemd/Mozilla/Linux?
It's easier to refer to modular systems using the one guaranteed common element, in this case, the kernel. It's not necessary to specify every major user-space program.
Re: How many GNU/Linux users are needed to change a light bulb?
#19Why is GNU/Linux still a thing? What’s the GNU bit of Linux?
Glibc which is linked by everything in userspace. Android is Linux but not usually gnu-linux as no glibc. Do any of the major distros use musl or any other libc in a meaningful way?
Alpine does, it's heavily used in many container images.
Re: How many GNU/Linux users are needed to change a light bulb?
#20Why is GNU/Linux still a thing? What’s the GNU bit of Linux?
Only most if not all of the software after you boot the kernel.
That's a bit of an exaggeration; Xorg isn't GNU, neither is Firefox, or a lot of other desktop and server applications and programming environments beyond gcc.
It also depends heavily on the machine; if you use GNOME then you've got another big chunk of GNU in there, but in my case the only major part that I actually use frequently is GNU libc, a subset of the GNU coreutils (which I'd very much like to replace with something better by the way), and maybe a few others libraries left or right used by some applications.
But beyond that it's just occasional stuff (GIMP for example).
On my Alpine Linux servers I'm not sure if there's any GNU.