Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Clayton Craft (craftyguy@freeradical.zone)'s status on Thursday, 01-Dec-2022 11:28:10 JST Clayton Craft

   this is the most succinct response I've ever seen to the comment "but Android is Linux!!"

   • twl likes this.
   • 翠星石 repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Abhiseck Paira :gnu: :gnuhurd: (redstarfish@social.linux.pizza)'s status on Monday, 05-Dec-2022 04:04:55 JST Abhiseck Paira :gnu: :gnuhurd:

     in reply to

     @craftyguy

     I hope people realize that the differentiating factor between Android and the so called "Linux Desktop" is GNU.

     Alexandre Oliva likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Dec-2022 14:01:23 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to

     • Gaveen Prabhasara
     why do you assign to linux alone the developments ensued by the successful combination of the heavy-lifter gnu (as you put it yourself) and the late-comer linux? whose propaganda is that?
   • Embed this notice
     Gaveen Prabhasara (gaveen@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Dec-2022 14:01:30 JST Gaveen Prabhasara

     in reply to

     • Abhiseck Paira :gnu: :gnuhurd:
     • ro

     @ro @redstarfish @craftyguy seriously though, even though GNU did the initial heavy lifting, Linux has moved on well beyond them. At this day and age, forcing people to call it GNU/Linux is ideology propaganda and a little sad to watch.

     翠星石 repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     ro@raru.re's status on Wednesday, 07-Dec-2022 14:01:36 JST ro

     in reply to

     • Abhiseck Paira :gnu: :gnuhurd:

     @redstarfish @craftyguy alpine linux is android, gotcha

   • Embed this notice
     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Dec-2022 16:30:49 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to

     • Gaveen Prabhasara
     the mistake in this argument is that this vibrant community that's not merely a kernel has to do with Linux alone, rather than with GNU+Linux. once they got combined into an explosively successful community, how can you possibly claim or pretend that advances the combination sparked are linked to one but not the other? see how misnaming the combination confuses your reasoning?
   • Embed this notice
     Gaveen Prabhasara (gaveen@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Dec-2022 16:30:50 JST Gaveen Prabhasara

     in reply to

     • Alexandre Oliva
     • Abhiseck Paira :gnu: :gnuhurd:

     @redstarfish @lxo There's a difference between choosing not to entertain punitive claims of a party at the detriment of a community who had outgrown them, and being ignorant.

     Why do you insist on highlighting GNU and GNU only, when Linux today is a vibrant community with contributions by millions of people, not merely a kernel?

     GNU deserve gratitude for *initial* heavy lifting. That's not the same as getting a free pass to be in people's face, split hair about purity, and gatekeeping nonsense.

     翠星石 repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Abhiseck Paira :gnu: :gnuhurd: (redstarfish@social.linux.pizza)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Dec-2022 16:30:51 JST Abhiseck Paira :gnu: :gnuhurd:

     in reply to

     • Gaveen Prabhasara

     @gaveen

     "gnu contain in traces" -> https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#allsmall

   • Embed this notice
     Gaveen Prabhasara (gaveen@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Dec-2022 16:30:52 JST Gaveen Prabhasara

     in reply to

     • Abhiseck Paira :gnu: :gnuhurd:
     • ro

     @redstarfish @ro @craftyguy see, what did I tell you about propaganda? ? Way to belittle all other contributions and at the same time prop up only your preferred ideology.

     "GNU system with Linux kernel", "poor imitations", "stupid arguments"... my, my. Faced with such convincing evidence, I've seen the error of my way. From now on, I'll call it: Linux (warning: may still contain trace amounts of GNU)

   • Embed this notice
     Abhiseck Paira :gnu: :gnuhurd: (redstarfish@social.linux.pizza)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Dec-2022 16:30:53 JST Abhiseck Paira :gnu: :gnuhurd:

     in reply to

     • Gaveen Prabhasara
     • ro

     @gaveen @ro @craftyguy

     When people say they are using Linux, in majority of cases they are indeed using the GNU system with Linux kernel.

     There are currently OSes that are poor imitation of gnu, that also uses kernel Linux. This doesn't change which os is GNU/Linux and which isn't.

     When you use gnu with linux, please call it gnu/linux instead of coming up with stupid argument that linux is also used by other OSes.

   • Embed this notice
     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Dec-2022 17:03:23 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to

     • Gaveen Prabhasara
     there are several mistakes in your description of the problem
     GNU is not asking to be credited without Linux, the opposite is what you're doing
     insisting on crediting only Linux does not address the perceived problem any better than crediting only GNU would
     
     the combination became a working operating system when Linux got combined with GNU. the author of Linux said so himself in early announcements.
     what sort of reasoning leads you to argue for naming this combination after the late-comer over the heavy-lifter?
     more importantly, why do you side with a project that does not even respect your freedom, and insist in pretending the project that cares about defending your freedom played a lesser role in this history? who are you trying to fool, and why?
     翠星石 likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Gaveen Prabhasara (gaveen@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Dec-2022 17:03:24 JST Gaveen Prabhasara

     in reply to

     • Alexandre Oliva

     @lxo please read my other reply, but slowly this time. The mistake is that GNU and only GNU being insisted to be credited. Other parties of the "vibrant community" are 'poor imitations of GNU system' and it has to be 'GNU/Linux', despite contributions of all others. It's this kind of toxic zeal that alienates people and drives them away from being associated with GNU.

     翠星石 repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Thursday, 08-Dec-2022 13:40:35 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to

     • Gaveen Prabhasara
     the author calls it Linux,, and publishes his kernel as linux-<version>.tar. anything else you refer to as Linux is a misnomer, a misrepresentation, a result of a misconception brought about by such ambiguous terms as "Linux kernel" and "Linux distribution". some people misunderstand the former as "kernel of Linux" rather than "kernel Linux". some misunderstand the former as meaning everything in the distribution is Linux, which is obviously not the case. Linux is less than 1% of the typical distro; GNU is more like 10%. the other 89% is mostly software made for the combination of GNU with Linux (even if some people think of that as Linux), or specifically for GNU, or inspired (like Linux) by GNU's campaigning for freedom.
     
     fairy tale: once upon a time, there was an operating system named Lennox, that after years of development, had only just started implementing a GUI with a revolutionary approach.
     someone else announced a plan to develop a GUI operating system, but ended up realizing most of the job was done, so they focused on the missing bit, took a beaten path and quickly released it as FreeX, recommending users to use it with Lennox.
     a third party built and published them together, naming the combination Canoe.
     Canoe was a hit, many started writing apps to run on Canoe, and contributing to the development of both Lennox and FreeX.
     users, reminded that Canoe was nothing but FreeX on top of Lennox, retort by pointing at the many apps.
     fair? unjust? toxic?
   • Embed this notice
     Gaveen Prabhasara (gaveen@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 08-Dec-2022 13:40:37 JST Gaveen Prabhasara

     in reply to

     • Alexandre Oliva

     @lxo siding with whom? And who said anything about crediting only the kernel? At this point, I have no idea what you are saying. So, I'll stop.

     Please remember, GNU insist on calling only the kernel as Linux and in turn demand to be credited as GNU/Linux, above all the other software components that goes into building systems these days. Rest of the world isn't as pedantic. GNU would be credited far more often if people didn't have to avoid being associated with the toxic brand it has become.

   • Embed this notice
     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Monday, 12-Dec-2022 05:27:27 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to

     • Sandy Vujaković
     why, sure, that's what those who wish to control your computing hope you'll think. if you're with them, go for it. whereas if you don't like the blobs and the attitude that comes from the Linux side, and wish to stand with those who fight for user freedom, better make sure users know it's GNU they want to associate with and strengthen.
   • Embed this notice
     Sandy Vujaković (elsandosgrande@pleroma.envs.net)'s status on Monday, 12-Dec-2022 05:27:39 JST Sandy Vujaković

     in reply to

     • Alexandre Oliva
     • Gaveen Prabhasara

     @lxo @gaveen Or how about we acknowledge that “Linux” is just a simple and convenient name for everyday people to use in everyday conversations to refer to this family of closely related operating systems, not some sort of indication or assignment of any sort of credit backed by any sort of propaganda, and just move on with our lives?

   • Embed this notice
     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Monday, 12-Dec-2022 18:41:18 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to

     • Seirdy
     you appear to be trying to rationalize technically a political issue
   • Embed this notice
     Seirdy (seirdy@pleroma.envs.net)'s status on Monday, 12-Dec-2022 18:41:19 JST Seirdy

     in reply to

     • Alexandre Oliva
     • Sandy Vujaković

     @elsandosgrande @lxo Just wrote about this over at https://seirdy.one/posts/2022/12/09/limited-utility-gnu-linux/

     In that post I argue that GNU versus non-GNU Linux isn’t a meaningful line to draw in the sand, since such a line separates similar distributions and groups very different ones.

     翠星石 repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Sandy Vujaković (elsandosgrande@pleroma.envs.net)'s status on Monday, 12-Dec-2022 18:41:21 JST Sandy Vujaković

     in reply to

     • Alexandre Oliva

     @lxo Calling Linux “GNU/Linux” isn’t going to do diddly squat in that regard. When the average individual hears either “Linux” or “GNU/Linux”, they don’t think: “Oh, kernel versus kernel plus core utilities.”, they either don’t know what the Hell those are, or they think: “Oh, that desktop operating system that’s neither macOS nor Windows.”, or maybe they think of servers if they’re a system administrator or something.

     Most people either don’t know or don’t care to know how the sausage is made, so saying “GNU/Linux” instead of just “Linux” doesn’t let them know anything; all this does is create a rift in the community and lead people to engage in futile arguments (of which this may be one). If people know what GNU is, saying “GNU/Linux” instead of just “Linux” doesn’t tell them anything new; if they don’t, just saying “GNU/Linux” won’t actually tell them anything, as they will just see it as a longer version of “Linux”, assuming that adding “GNU” to it doesn’t throw them off, which it likely will for some.

     Shoving GNU in people’s faces so vehemently isn’t achieving what you think it’s achieving. Most people don’t care about software freedom if it means that what they can do with their device is restricted, or their choice of device is restricted, or both, because that to them is a greater restriction of freedom than the software being closed-source; Hell, sadly, most people don’t even know what open source is.

     Say we want to get half a billion people around the globe using Linux. Professing about its software freedom and user privacy benefits could get dozens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands to a million people to come over to Linux that way, but it’s not enough to make a truly meaningful impact. What’s needed to entice the largest number of people possible to switch from Windows and macOS (and eventually macOS on modern Macs with Asahi Linux) is:

     1. for Linux to, at minimum, be essentially at parity with Windows and/or macOS in terms of features, usability, and performance, if not better than it, which it can already be for a lot of people depending on the desktop environment and such
     2. for there to be a hassle-free way to run Linux on the devices that people currently own, because most people don’t want to buy a whole new laptop or motherboard or whatever just to run this newfangled operating system that they don’t yet even know if will work well for them specifically, which there already is for a lot of devices if we accept a few proprietary bits here and there
     3. for there to be a hassle-free way to keep their workflow uninterrupted after switching to Linux, like there being open-source alternatives which are at feature parity or even beyond that with whatever they were using on Windows or macOS and fully support the exact same data exchange formats that they use with their proprietary applications, or the proprietary applications having a Linux build, ala DaVinci Resolve

     In other words, there have to be basically no sacrifices made when switching to Linux. You might be willing to sacrifice some things for the cause, but most people aren’t willing to sacrifice things for a cause that they’ve just learned about, let alone those who aren’t in a position to do so no matter how much they would or wouldn’t want to.

     I don’t know about you, but a world where most people run Linux with a few blobs here and there and with proprietary firmware seems a lot freer than a world where most people run Windows and macOS with all binary blobs and proprietary firmware. If I had a choice between a world where relatively few people run Linux with no binary blobs and proprietary firmware, whereas the rest just use Windows and macOS with proprietary everything, and a world where no people run Linux with no binary blobs and proprietary firmware, but relatively few people run Windows and macOS and everybody else runs Linux with a few binary blobs, proprietary firmware, and maybe a proprietary application or two, I’d choose the latter any day of the week, because the latter actually has a chance of achieving the end goal of total freedom because it has already gained so much market traction. Things could change if RISC-V gains competitive performance and market traction, but we’ll have to wait and see.

     Regarding point three, Wine and virtualisation are options, but those are not exactly hassle-free, since they need some setup. Wine can be hit or miss — CATIA V5R21 failed to install in Wine last time I tried it for example — and virtualisation requires ample memory and storage space at bare minimum if we just stick with VMware Workstation (because VirtualBox’s graphics acceleration is still bugged for Windows guests), whereas going the QEMU route would, on top of that, require more time and skill to set up at the very least; this is all assuming the computer isn’t a potato by the way, which is actually surprisingly common.

     By the way, if what you need to do something that requires GPU compute and the application doesn’t have a Linux build, well, you’re kind of out of luck. As far as I know, Wine doesn’t support translating or passing through GPU compute calls, whether OpenCL or others, though I would very much like to be proven otherwise, and neither VMware no VirtualBox’s virtual GPUs are able to provide a compute interface. Passing the GPU through with QEMU works, but not quite if you have a laptop with a muxless NVIDIA dGPU, which is most if not all of them nowadays. Also, if the GPU isn’t cleanly partitioned into its own IOMMU group, passthrough can get hairy from what I’ve heard.

     Also, before somebody mentions gaming, that’s actually been essentially fine on my laptop, even with Windows-only titles, aside from one which used NW.js.

     Tl;dr

     Saying “GNU/Linux” as opposed to just “Linux” doesn’t convey anything useful in and of itself, most people don’t want to restrict what they can do with their devices or what devices they can buy, that is sacrifice things, for a cause that they’ve just learned about or that they don’t have much interest in yet, and a hassle-free experience is basically a necessity for most people to switch over yet can be nigh-impossible depending on what you need to do for work and whatnot.

   • Embed this notice
     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Monday, 12-Dec-2022 19:09:20 JST 翠星石

     in reply to

     • Sandy Vujaković
     @elsandosgrande >Calling Linux “GNU/Linux” isn’t going to do diddly squat in that regard.
     I have never referred to the kernel, Linux as "GNU/Linux.
     
     >When the average individual hears either “Linux” or “GNU/Linux”, they don’t think: “Oh, kernel versus kernel plus core utilities.”
     No, GNU is not just a set of coreutils, although one package is a coreutils implementation: https://www.gnu.org/software/
     
     >they either don’t know what the Hell those are, or they think: “Oh, that desktop operating system that’s neither macOS nor Windows.”
     Most people haven't heard of GNU, so mentioning it gives them a chance to discover software freedom.
     All is good if a listener understands that GNU/Linux is an OS.
     
     >Most people either don’t know or don’t care to know how the sausage is made, so saying “GNU/Linux” instead of just “Linux” doesn’t let them know anything; all this does is create a rift in the community and lead people to engage in futile arguments
     Since most people don't care how the sausage is made you wish to hide how it's made from those who wish to know?
     
     I cannot fathom as to how calling the GNU OS by its name creates at "rift", unless one group is looking to rewrite history and the present, hmm...
     
     >Shoving GNU in people’s faces so vehemently isn’t achieving what you think it’s achieving.
     Yet you try to shove the proprietary kernel know as "Linux" in my face with all your might?
     
     >Most people don’t care about software freedom if it means that what they can do with their device is restricted, or their choice of device is restricted, or both, because that to them is a greater restriction of freedom than the software being closed-source;
     Free software doesn't limit what you can do with your device - you can do anything you wish.
     Some devices are designed to jail the user and it's our fault that the device jails the user?
     Devices that respect the users freedom are decently documented and are reasonably priced.
     
     >Hell, sadly, most people don’t even know what open source is.
     Yes, since the natural meaning of "open source" is; you can't look at the source code.
     
     >Say we want to get half a billion people around the globe using Linux.
     Far more than that already use such kernel due to android, but those users sadly don't have freedom.
     
     I don't give a rats ass about popularity.
     
     >Professing about its software freedom and user privacy benefits could get dozens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands to a million people to come over to Linux that way, but it’s not enough to make a truly meaningful impact.
     Um, more than a million people use the GNU OS already, what are you on about?
     I'm personally only are interested in freedom enjoyers.
     
     >for Linux to, at minimum, be essentially at parity with Windows and/or macOS in terms of features, usability, and performance, if not better than it
     Linux is only a kernel, so it cannot match an OS at anything.
     
     The GNU OS far surpassed every last proprietary OS in terms of features, usability and performance years ago.
     
     >for there to be a hassle-free way to run Linux on the devices that people currently own
     Plenty of easy to use GNU installers already exist.
     
     >for there to be a hassle-free way to keep their workflow uninterrupted after switching to Linux, like there being open-source alternatives which are at feature parity or even beyond that with whatever they were using on Windows or macOS and fully support the exact same data exchange formats that they use with their proprietary applications, or the proprietary applications having a Linux build, ala DaVinci Resolve
     I'm not interested in pandering to people who are unable to change their workflow slightly.
     
     >there have to be basically no sacrifices made when switching to Linux.
     There are no sacrifices made when switching to GNU - you gain freedom.
     Casting away the chains of proprietary things is not a sacrifice.
     
     >but a world where most people run Linux with a few blobs here and there and with proprietary firmware seems a lot freer than a world where most people run Windows and macOS with all binary blobs and proprietary firmware.
     You aren't free if there's anything proprietary - almost free, but never reaching 100% free is pretty much as bad as all proprietary really.
     
     >Saying “GNU/Linux” as opposed to just “Linux” doesn’t convey anything useful in and of itself, most people don’t want to restrict what they can do with their devices or what devices they can buy, that is sacrifice things, for a cause that they’ve just learned about or that they don’t have much interest in yet, and a hassle-free experience is basically a necessity for most people to switch over yet can be nigh-impossible depending on what you need to do for work and whatnot.
     GNU/Linux will be utterly ruined if more people come over with all their proprietary malware, miss me with that please.
     
     Hmm, maybe I'll end up having to look down from the high spires of GNU/Hurd soon™.