this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
614 points (98.3% liked)

Linux

48144 readers
755 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
 

Taken from the CompTIA IT Fundamentals Exam Guide book (2nd edition, published 2021). I'm not sure if they fixed this in newer versions, if at all.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

GNU is not a set of programs or libraries, it's an operating system.

GNU packages is what you are referring to. But GNU itself is the name of the OS.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It was intended to be an OS and is if you use the Hurd kernel. In practice, Hurd isn't really used, so it is just a bunch of programs and libraries. I guess it can go either way.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Agree. GNU Hurd is the OS. GNU Utils is a bunch of libre utilities that replicates the function of the UNIX utilities.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

It is not "intended" to be an OS if you use GNU Hurd. That is literally the name of the operating system that launched the entire libre software movement. You don't engage with it that way because linux comms don't bother to educate their users at all.

Rms was right, "linux" users don't care about history and "linux" communties stopped giving a shit.