- cross-posted to:
- linux@lemmy.helvetet.eu
- cross-posted to:
- linux@lemmy.helvetet.eu
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 🤍
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.
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.
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.
Why would I discount the most popular applications of the kernel? That is almost the whole userbase
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.