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Sanddancer | 8 years ago

How many of them actually intimately use the GNU userland as opposed to Xorg and whatever libc's installed? GNU's an increasingly irrelevant portion of unix and unixlike systems -- most of the actually important userland portions are python, ruby, the aforementioned Xorg, etc.

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mikekchar|8 years ago

I actually don't think you are incorrect. GNU is not nearly as big a piece of the puzzle as it used to be. It's just that when most people say "Linux Desktop", the part where they say "Linux" usually means the part that GNU makes up. As far as I know, GNU libc is still by far and away the most popular libc installed on those kinds of systems.

So it was just kind of a snarky joke because the parent said that to be a "Linux Desktop" you had to be able to get ssh running (presumably they meant openssh). And while that's not GNU, GNU is what the vast majority of "Linux Desktops" will use to get you there -- so the implication really was that "Linux Desktop" == "GNU/Linux Desktop".

I thought it was funny, but probably I was being too obscure. Also, I should know better than to dive into politics for no good reason.

jsjohnst|8 years ago

> GNU's an increasingly irrelevant portion of Unix

Say what? Do you know what GNU means or what it includes? Here's a link so you can learn more:

https://www.gnu.org/software/software.html

Sanddancer|8 years ago

Yes, I know what it means and includes. Android, which is one of the biggest unixes right now, doesn't use GNU. iOS, which is another one of the biggest unixes right now, doesn't use GNU. Most embedded linuxes don't use GNU. So yes, for the parts of unix which are visible to most people, the gnu parts are not very relevant at all.