this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
323 points (98.2% liked)

Linux

48363 readers
1451 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Is this an historical thing? I was really confused when I started using KDE.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

I don't believe so. In KDE3 it was double click IIRC then it changed with the single click during the web mania UI when people suddenly wanted the big unification for everything: phones, fridges, tablets, supercomputers.

Like a lot of other people mention, this is the first thing I flip in plasma too. A mouse with a pointer is just different from a tactile interface.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

I personally don't remember it being that way but it's been a long time since I've used KDE. Like, Mandrake was still a thing when I last used it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Partially, sure, but there's also a lot of KDE devs that are really convinced that it's objectively superior and wanted the default to convince more people to use it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In 2004, Microsoft was granted a patent on using a double-click on "limited resource computing devices". As a result of this, some observers fear that any U.S. company which uses double-clicking may have to change their product not to use the technology, pay licensing fees to Microsoft, or give Microsoft access to intellectual property.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

On the bright side, in the US patents expire after 16 years without an extension, and no patent can last past 20