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.

      • @YaBoyMax@programming.dev
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        1310 months ago

        The whole concept of claiming that GNU is the actual OS never made much sense to me. Like yeah, glibc and coreutils are very major components, but so is the init system, and the package manager, and the WM, and the DE… I don’t really understand why RMS draws the line at GNU arbitrarily other than to stroke his own ego. Following his underlying logic, shouldn’t I call my system Plasma/KWin/pacman/systemd/GNU/Linux?

        None of this is directed at you btw, it’s just something that always springs to mind for me whenever this topic comes up.

        • @jsnc
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          10 months ago

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        • @spauldo@lemmy.ml
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          810 months ago

          GNU is a project whose goal is to create a free operating system.

          Way back in the dark ages when commercial UNIX was relevant, it was common to install various GNU utilities to get a better user experience or get things like a C compiler without having to pay tons of money for it.

          The kernel part of the project didn’t work out, so the de facto purpose of the GNU project morphed into creating better utilities and libraries for other operating systems.

          When the Linux kernel came around, the GNU software was the base of system. That’s why RMS insists on the GNU/Linux thing.

          Things like the window system and desktop environment aren’t really considered part of the OS by folks like RMS (and me, for that matter). It’s probably an age thing - used to be there was a “core” system and various add-ons. The core system is the OS in our world view.

    • @gorysubparbagel@lemmy.world
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      810 months ago

      I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

      Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

      There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!

      • @jsnc
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        • Raistlin
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          710 months ago

          Ehh… Not really incredibly outdated? I mean most Linux systems with a few exceptions (looking at you Alpine) use gnu software in them, and it is a somewhat fair argument to say that a kernel isn’t an entire operating system and other factors should be considered. Also why the quotation marks? It is a Linux joke, and if you don’t like our humor than you can just kinda… Ignore it? I mean it’s not like someone has you chained to a chair, forced to only look at linuxmemes.

          • @jsnc
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            • @fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk
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              310 months ago

              So any time someone posts the “I’d just like to interject for a moment…” speech, we should now copy and paste the “First of all, this copypasta has never been said…” speech in response, thus making the meme a) longer, b) interactive, c) technically correct?