this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
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Linux

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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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What feature/utility/app are you surprised is not installed by default in Linux distributions? (lemdro.id)
submitted 1 year ago by mfat@lemdro.id to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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[–] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 54 points 1 year ago (4 children)

less, I don't remember what distro it was, but there wasn't less. There was more though.

[–] atlasraven31@lemm.ee 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Sometimes, more is less.

[–] bert@lemmy.monster 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

But when will "then" be "now"?

[–] Decker108@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Will the future be better tomorrow?

[–] unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think more was a DOS tool

[–] duncesplayed@lemmy.one 2 points 1 year ago

It was, but it was (and still is) a Unix tool. I believe POSIX still requires that more be provided (even if it's just less secretly).

The original Unix more could only go forwards. Someone wanted to make something like more that could go both forwards and backwards, so he called it less as a joke (because "less" is a "backwards more"). For the past 40 years, everyone's realized that less is much better than the original more, so nobody uses the original any more.

(MSDOS took the idea of "more" before "less" caught on).

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

Also, sometimes they have an old version of less. There was a change in the past, I don't know, five or so years that made the "exit if less than one page" flag behave better. I don't remember the specifics but it made using it as a fit pager way better. It used to be that it was difficult to have it act like cat when the output was less than a page. But newer versions support it.

[–] Sir_Simon_Spamalot@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

What distro was this?