Why Linux is portrayed as a Penguin?
this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023
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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.
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I understand why Stallman wanted us to say GNU/Linux, because his organization needs money and wants its name out there, but that's simply not how things get named in the real world.
First, GNU was always a mouthful. It's always been intentionally pronounced differently from the animal. People prefer names that are not confusing and that don't sound strange.
Second, we don't do the same thing for other operating systems. If you're an illustrator, you don't say that you work on Adobe/Windows or whatever.
Third, GNU/Linux adds nothing interesting over simply "Linux". And in fact, there have been distributions where they avoid GNU tooling due. Everybody still recognizes these as Linux.
For your second point, do you say that you use Adobe or Windows?
Or how about if I said I made this cool image using Linux? More likely I'd say I used GIMP or ImageMagick or some specific command line tool.
Linux is just the kernel. It's an amazing kernel, but it's only half the story. The tools on top of it are just as important as the kernel. That's the point of saying GNU/Linux is to call out the other half of the whole experience.
The reason GNU/Linux isn't popular to say is that it doesn't provide any real information. "I run Linux" and "I run GNU/Linux" doesn't really tell you anything. "I run Debian", "I run Fedora", "I run Arch BTW", those all tell you something different.
I can't speak to the OS landscape when Linux was released. Maybe saying that you ran GNU/Minix or Bell/Unix or whatever combinations might have existed would have made sense. However at this point it doesn't.
I mean, you already know the answer to that. The point is that you don't have to give the entire context of your computing environment every time you mention some product you use.
It's not only the kernel. It is also the name that people have settled on for differentiating the computer running the Linux kernel from a computer running Windows.
I always pronounced it guh-new as in “Gary Gnu”.
How is it supposed to be pronounced?
I was contrasting it with the animal "gnu", otherwise known as the wildebeest, which is pronounced more similar to the word "new". I suspect more people know the animal gnu than know the organization GNU.
Agreed. Names don't work that way. Should we just append any remotely relevant info to the name? "I use Arch/Systemd/Gnu/Linux-AMD 5 7700X, webcam connected, 2000 dpi mouse BTW"
Yea totally with you there.