Introduction
Did you know Linux is the most popular operating system in the world? It is! For servers and supercomputers. The millions o...
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But you have to, we have been saying it for a decade, is tradition!.
For a decade? They were saying that already when I started using Linux in the late 1990s/early 2000s.
But that was nonsense, because clearly THIS is the year of the Linux desktop.
And those where really optimistic, when I used Mandrake 9.1 many years ago, almost none knew about Linux, half of the HW didn't worked, no big vendors sold machines with it and most of the distros, if not all, couldn't even play mp3.
I'm not even sure I would like the year of the Linux desktop to come, most users don't care about freedom, customization. good design or privacy. What would happen if all Windows users came to our side?, what would happen when 90% of now Linux users stop caring about those attributes?, things like when Ubuntu got bashed because it got Amazon ads in their main menu, wouldn't happen anymore, blobs would start to proliferate, we would have scenarios like Nvidia, where the FOSS alternative is almost unusable but nobody cares because the blob just works, everything would be chaos and horror and fire would fall from the skies!, or not, who knows. Hopefully we'll have Slackware with its awesome shitty website, the mighty Gentoo and all the Linux craziness.
As Ian Malcolm said, "Weirdness cannot be contained. Wirdness breaks free. Weirdness... finds a way", long live FOSS
Oh Pleaseeee!!!!
Am I the only one seeing this post as complete mislead!!? First of all, LINUX is not an operating system, it is just a kernel(a teeny-tiny but very important part) of an OS. GNU/LINUX is the complete Operating System suite. GNU(most of the OS) + Linux (part of the OS, Kernal)
Do give credit to GNU as well, which worked 95% on the so called Operating System you are talking about.
gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.en.html
Yes it would have been good to point out GNU (and things like desktop managers, Gnome, KDE etc) ... but talking about giving credit, Linus Torvalds isn't even being mentioned in the article! For the rest, in my opinion this article is a very nice overview for the Linux n00b :-)
Well, every GNU thing can be easily replaced, while you can't easily replace the linux kernel itself for anything better. Also, one could argue that even the Desktop Environment plays a bigger role than the GNU software.
I completely agree with the adaptability and different flavours. But we should not forget the effort of GNU team put in making a FOSS Operating System against all proprietary giants at that time. And am not dis-honouring the contribution of Linus Torvalds as well, he has done a tremendous job. What we should not do is praise or give credit only to Linux or Torvalds. Please give credits to GNU as well.
When Mr. Torvalds made his kernel FOSS, there was a similar project called HURD going on with GNU to replace Unix kernel.
What I actually mean is , people who write/speak about Linux Operating System and don't know/mention about GNU, they should revise their knowledge base!!
HURD was, and still is, not really useful for anything.
I don't think GNU deserves any other mention that what it already has in the license files and some package names.
Even in the link you posted they base relevance on line of code amount. If we go by that metric, then even a web browser deserves way more credits than GNU itself due to their higher LoC amont, but we don't see anyone calling their systems Chrome/Linux or Firefox/BSD.
I do think GNU deserves a mention.
If Linux was solely developed, and not combined with an OS like suite(which was already present) no one would have used it. Or if GNU tried (still trying to write a completely Free kernel) it would have been ages to see a Free and Open Source Operating System. By the time we all would have became slaves to big tech conglomerate.
A complete FOSS OS is true now because of both GNU and Linux so they does deserve mentioning.
The only drawback in linux is that you can’t play popular games on it😓, thats why i have windows along with linux
Try this if you haven't yet: github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton.
The best part of this is that you just have to check a checkbox labelled "Enable SteamPlay for all titles" under Settings after which Steam restarts and then you have access to thousands of Windows games on your Linux machine. Since Valve introduced Proton, things have been turned around in the world of Linux gaming.
As we're discussing games on Linux, I could'nt skip mentioning gamingonlinux.com.
Which games have you been unable to play, specifically?
League of legends
Starcraft 2
I can't speak to League of Legends, because I don't play it. On a quick search, it looks like a new "anticheat" method that Riot is introducing is fundamentally incompatible with Linux, because it's kernel level, though 😠 . Honestly, even as a Windows gamer, I'd push back heavily on this new method they're looking to implement, because that's draconian as hell. It is, for all intents and purposes, a rootkit with more privileges than the system administrator account. and it runs even when the game is not, and is not removed when you uninstall their games (instead, you have to uninstall it separately).
Starcraft 3 doesn't exist, but Starcraft 2 plays just fine.
One thing I've noticed over the years is that Linux is the canary in the gaming coal mine, especially at this point. Pretty much any game that isn't actively dis-supported (ie - support and compatibility actively removed) and is simply not written specifically for Linux but uses fairly standard libraries and methods and such, work out of the box. Hell, I played Borderlands 3 the week it launched on Steam without much problem.
So when a game doesn't work on Linux, even if it's not officially supported, 9 times out of 10, it's because the company actively did something to break it. Very often lately, it's been "anti-cheat" software that's overly invasive -- and considering how much flak Acti-Blizz got for Warden being invasive when they first launched it and all of the Acti-Blizz games work just fine on Linux, and Warden pales in comparison to things like Riot's new one, that's saying a ton.
In my opinion, even if you're a die-hard Windows gamer who couldn't possibly care less about the state of gaming on Linux, it's worth seeing what games cannot run at all under Linux, because they're few and far enough between these days that there's a very good chance it's a dead canary and there's something that the publisher is doing that is ethically sketchy.
You can play games, if some is not supported is not Linux's fault but it's maker
Yes i know that, unfortunately not a few companies are doing this 😓
Thanks! Such an impressive and visionary work to code an OS 20yrs ago and don't have to change anything all these years.
My favorite learning Linux project is Linux From Scratch - learned a tone 15yrs ago.
Such a cute ... guy!
Nicely done, thanks!
Great intro to Linux!
I've been using Linux since 1998, and nothing to say to your post but "good work!" I wish I'd had have this kind of document 22 years ago :D
Hey E,
Loved: 'man hier'. That was totally new to me. And I thought I had been using Linux a while. ;)
Free as in freedom. I love that.
And cell phones! Android is based on linux kernel.
with Microsoft pushing Linux into Windows OS via WSL, my opinion is that Linux is losing the Desktop segment.
excellent (and practical) article!
Is it? I always though it was pronounced et cetera... like the Latin phrase used in English?