Copernicus | # 171 | 2016-04-22, 07:25 | Report

Yes, but it can be made Linux-compatible. That is probably the most important question for Linux-like OSs today.

juiceme | # 172 | 2016-04-22, 12:46 | Report

Yes, but you DO understand what I am talking about, right?
"Linux" is the thing you can get from kernel.org git repo.
Usually most people need some kind of userland too, that includes even people like me

There are plenty of userlands to choose from, and the GNU kind is the one people usually mean when they think they are using "Linux"
It is not the only alternative though, you can use BSD userland on top of Linux. Or Android userland. Some people even roll their own, either picking/combining from existing OS'es or designing completely own.
(and yes, I have even done that...)

Why I am so insistent on this;
Words are important, and we need to fight the erosion of meaning. Think about the word "hacker" for example, wich nowdays is used by the clueless ilk as synonyme for "cracker"

Copernicus | # 173 | 2016-04-22, 14:04 | Report

Oh, absolutely! Linux is not userland. That's kind of my point: if you want to talk Linux + Userland, you're generally talking a distribution. The problem I have is that GNU is not a distribution; it is more of a philosophy, or better put, a movement. Many software packages have been written within this project; others have been designed in sympathy with it, but outside the project; yet others stand independent from GNU, or even in opposition to it. Software of all these sorts can be found in most distributions. (The Linux kernel itself is most emphatically not part of the GNU project.)

Right. Calling a Linux + Userland OS just "Linux" is an erosion of meaning. Calling a Linux + Userland OS "GNU/Linux" is even worse, as it (a) endorses using the name "Linux" to describe the entire OS, and (b) incorrectly implies that the entire package is subsumed within the GNU project.

mscion | # 174 | 2016-04-22, 14:35 | Report

Could you folks please clear something up for me. I've never quite understood the gnu of gnu/linux. One way of putting it. If you took the gnu out of gnu/linux, what would you have? For example is the set of commands like "ls", "tail" or "more" part of the core linux or is that what gnu brings. Also, How about vi or vim? vi runs on my android phone but I think that is because I have busybox. So then is busybox a program that simply contains a subset of the gnu utilities. Finally when I think of a distribution like Debian and Ubuntu, is that then linux + gnu + whatever else Debian or Ubuntu has to offer. Where as Andriod is linux + whatever else Android has to offer. Thanks!

marxian | # 175 | 2016-04-22, 14:54 | Report

The commands you mention are part of GNU coreutils: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Core_Utilities

marxian | # 176 | 2016-04-22, 14:59 | Report

The '/' implies a combination, so GNU/Linux is 'GNU+Linux' or 'GNU with Linux'. Richard Stallman insists on it because he sees an ethical difference between software using copyleft licensing and that using permissive or propriatory licensing.

Permissive != free

mscion | # 177 | 2016-04-22, 15:31 | Report

Thank you for that information and reference. So commands like "ls" and "cat" are a "reimplementation" of Unix based commands and are not part of the core kernel. From reading this reference seems like Unix came with its own kernel. Also, I see that GNU stands for GNU's Not Unix. Kind of a weird acronym. Is this a statement of it being free? Also, does writing gnu/linux imply a level of functionality equivalent to Unix? Thanks!

Copernicus | # 178 | 2016-04-22, 15:33 | Report

A lot of the confusion, as I noted above, is that neither Linux nor GNU are correct names for the object being named here. Linux is an operating systems kernel; GNU is a project to create a computing environment constructed totally from "free" source code (with exactly what "free" means being defined by Richard Stallman and his associates).

The funny thing is, all these commands were originally written by somebody, and all of them have their own story. "ls" was in the original AT&T Unix, and versions (with greater or lesser compatability) have been written for pretty much every Unix and Unix-like OS. Same with "tail". On the other hand, "more" was first created for BSD Unix.

One of my favorites. "vi" was created at Berkely as an extension to "ex", which itself was built on a foundation of editors going back to AT&T's "ed". Many extensions, clones, and complete rewrites of vi have been made over the years, including the very nice "vim". "vim" has the rather unique history of originally being written for the Commodore Amiga, based upon the code for a similar editor created for the Atari ST. Only later did it make its way to Unix systems. (BTW, vim is included with every copy of Apple's OS X. )

Ultimately, the people creating a Linux distribution are free to choose whatever they want to add into that distribution. Some distributions strive to maximize the amount of GNU-based or GNU-compatible software (e.g. Debian), some strive to minimize it (e.g. Android), others are more agnostic (Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, etc.). And, of course, not only can you find Linux without GNU, you can find GNU without Linux (lots of GNU code is available for BSD, for OSX, for Windows, etc.).

So yeah, the world is complicated out there.

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Last edited by Copernicus; 2016-04-22 at 15:53.

Copernicus | # 179 | 2016-04-22, 15:36 | Report

They have been reimplemented within the GNU Core Utilites, yes. They existed before GNU, however, and you can find direct derivatives of the originals as well as non-GNU reimplementations of them elsewhere.

Copernicus | # 180 | 2016-04-22, 15:44 | Report

Problem is, Linux is not GNU. A Linux distribution may contain elements from the GNU project, but then it'd be better to use the name GNU/Ubuntu or GNU/Fedora.

Android is most definitely Linux, and most definitely not GNU. Debian is almost wholly GNU (except, of course, for the Linux kernel, which is most definitely not GNU). A Fedora distribution will be somewhere in the middle, and any given Arch implementation could be near 100% GNU or near 0% GNU.

Ultimately, just saying a distribution is GNU/Linux is misleading, because you really don't know how much GNU is in there. (Whereas Linux either is or is not in there for certain.)