Happy birthday 🎊🎉 GNU/Linux.

Today GNU/Linux is 32 years old.

It was thankfully released to the public on August 25th, 1991 by Linus Torvalds when he was only 21 years old student.

What a lovely journey 🤍

  • xill47@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    But what about Linux distributions compiled without GNU tools? Most popular Linux distribution’s kernel currently is compiled with Clang, not GCC, and as far as I am aware does not include anything from GNU. Of course Linux is historically influenced by GNU, but in current day and age they are orthogonal

    • duncesplayed@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      It doesn’t change the larger point that GNU is way bigger than Linux, though. There are a tonne of things that are larger than Linux, and GNU is one of them.

      • xill47@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        That is an entirely different argument which I did not contest and the comment I have answered to did not make

        EDIT: Although, it depends on what we define as “bigger”. Binary size is certainly bigger, but user adoption is abysmal comparatively.

        • Captain Beyond@linkage.ds8.zone
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          1 year ago

          but user adoption is abysmal comparatively

          I guess this is a matter of perspective. What I was saying in my previous comment is that what people commonly refer to as “Linux” (as in “Linux distributions”) is not just Linux (which is just a kernel) but also includes a bunch of other stuff, including GNU (that is what GNU/Linux refers to). If you’re talking about the actual thing called Linux, you’d be right, because most GNU systems are GNU/Linux systems, whereas arguably most Linux systems are not GNU systems; Alpine and Android are non-GNU Linux systems.

          However, if like many in the Linux fandom you discount Android, then most Linux systems are GNU systems and vice-versa.

          • xill47@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Why would I discount the most popular applications of the kernel? That is almost the whole userbase

            • Captain Beyond@linkage.ds8.zone
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              1 year ago

              I wouldn’t either, but you see the sentiment especially among the !linuxphones@lemmy.ml crowd. The fact that Android is Linux is significant because it does in fact allow you to run so-called “Linux apps” (either under Termux or under a dedicated chroot set up by something like UserLAnd) and that is something to be lauded. Android has problems but not being “real Linux” is not among them.