this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2024
242 points (96.9% liked)

Linux

48307 readers
1108 users here now

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.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Deckweiss@lemmy.world -2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Ah yes, the immutable OS, except for all of the various mutable parts.

We should totally not call it anything less confusing.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It's not confusing at all... How is this any more confusing than:

Flatpak - they're not literally flat...

Snap - I've never seen or heard any evidence of something snapping by any definition of the word I'm aware of.

Dolphin - what the fuck is this, no sea life whatsoever!

Kate - this is a text editor, not a person.

Distrobox - not in an actual box.

etc.

[–] Deckweiss@lemmy.world -1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

The main difference to your examples is that an "immutable OS" is in fact mutable, while none of your examples describe themselves with an adjective that is contradicting with their function/inner workings.

Flatpak is a pretty good name, because it makes software flat in the sense that it avoids having a (tall) dependency tree.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I installed Bottles, but was disappointed when it didn't actually have anything to do with bottles.

If you think every name of every product, etc., is going to be literal... you're gonna have a tough time in life.

[–] Deckweiss@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Bottles is a noun and not an adjective.

Also bottles has no IT related meaning, while immutable does.

"Immutable OS" is not a product name.


An "immutable" OS becomes mutable whenever a user wants to change anything on it.

Now imagine I keep describing my car as undrivable, because it only becomes drivable when somebody gets in and drives it. - You'd think that this is a completely deranged statement.