this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2024
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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.
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Not really, on Gentoo you can set use_flags to disable entire parts of a binary. Is it useful? Is it worth it? I personally think not, which is why I stopped using Gentoo, but it's definitely more customisable than Arch.
However that has nothing to do with doing illegal stuff, not sure where he got that idea from.
I think it is very useful because of that, because that way you can omit dependencies that would be installed otherwise.
And maybe it reduces the risk of having bugs and security problems in the software that you use tied to certain features of it you don't have compiled in.
Or maybe it causes other bugs or security issues that are not widely known because most people use it with different flags.
It's no more or less secure, it's just more customisable.