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

Linux

48023 readers
994 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] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, that's a big confusion.

I hate the RMS rant about how you're supposed to say "GNU/Linux", but here we're talking about a GNU package that can be used without Linux. It's on FreeBSD and even macOS.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

It just goes to show how important it is to come up with a good name. Recursive acronyms are clever and all, but if no one likes saying it they aren't going to. T