Silly goober :3

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: October 30th, 2023

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  • No, Richard, it’s ‘Linux’, not ‘GNU/Linux’. The most important contributions that the FSF made to Linux were the creation of the GPL and the GCC compiler. Those are fine and inspired products. GCC is a monumental achievement and has earned you, RMS, and the Free Software Foundation countless kudos and much appreciation.

    Following are some reasons for you to mull over, including some already answered in your FAQ.

    One guy, Linus Torvalds, used GCC to make his operating system (yes, Linux is an OS – more on this later). He named it ‘Linux’ with a little help from his friends. Why doesn’t he call it GNU/Linux? Because he wrote it, with more help from his friends, not you. You named your stuff, I named my stuff – including the software I wrote using GCC – and Linus named his stuff. The proper name is Linux because Linus Torvalds says so. Linus has spoken. Accept his authority. To do otherwise is to become a nag. You don’t want to be known as a nag, do you?

    (An operating system) != (a distribution). Linux is an operating system. By my definition, an operating system is that software which provides and limits access to hardware resources on a computer. That definition applies whereever you see Linux in use. However, Linux is usually distributed with a collection of utilities and applications to make it easily configurable as a desktop system, a server, a development box, or a graphics workstation, or whatever the user needs. In such a configuration, we have a Linux (based) distribution. Therein lies your strongest argument for the unwieldy title ‘GNU/Linux’ (when said bundled software is largely from the FSF). Go bug the distribution makers on that one. Take your beef to Red Hat, Mandrake, and Slackware. At least there you have an argument. Linux alone is an operating system that can be used in various applications without any GNU software whatsoever. Embedded applications come to mind as an obvious example.

    Next, even if we limit the GNU/Linux title to the GNU-based Linux distributions, we run into another obvious problem. XFree86 may well be more important to a particular Linux installation than the sum of all the GNU contributions. More properly, shouldn’t the distribution be called XFree86/Linux? Or, at a minimum, XFree86/GNU/Linux? Of course, it would be rather arbitrary to draw the line there when many other fine contributions go unlisted. Yes, I know you’ve heard this one before. Get used to it. You’ll keep hearing it until you can cleanly counter it.

    You seem to like the lines-of-code metric. There are many lines of GNU code in a typical Linux distribution. You seem to suggest that (more LOC) == (more important). However, I submit to you that raw LOC numbers do not directly correlate with importance. I would suggest that clock cycles spent on code is a better metric. For example, if my system spends 90% of its time executing XFree86 code, XFree86 is probably the single most important collection of code on my system. Even if I loaded ten times as many lines of useless bloatware on my system and I never excuted that bloatware, it certainly isn’t more important code than XFree86. Obviously, this metric isn’t perfect either, but LOC really, really sucks. Please refrain from using it ever again in supporting any argument.

    Last, I’d like to point out that we Linux and GNU users shouldn’t be fighting among ourselves over naming other people’s software. But what the heck, I’m in a bad mood now. I think I’m feeling sufficiently obnoxious to make the point that GCC is so very famous and, yes, so very useful only because Linux was developed. In a show of proper respect and gratitude, shouldn’t you and everyone refer to GCC as ‘the Linux compiler’? Or at least, ‘Linux GCC’? Seriously, where would your masterpiece be without Linux? Languishing with the HURD?

    If there is a moral buried in this rant, maybe it is this:

    Be grateful for your abilities and your incredible success and your considerable fame. Continue to use that success and fame for good, not evil. Also, be especially grateful for Linux’ huge contribution to that success. You, RMS, the Free Software Foundation, and GNU software have reached their current high profiles largely on the back of Linux. You have changed the world. Now, go forth and don’t be a nag.

    Thanks for listening.

    • Linus Torvalds




  • My primary issue with cosmic is the seeming lack of customizability. On Hyprland I was able to change all the keybindings to the i3 shortcuts (thats what I personally prefer). My full list of problems are:

    1. High resource usage: I get its a full DE but as a WM user it would be nice to disable extra features I dont like
    2. Documentation: I get its still in alpha but morr documentation would be nice
    3. Extension support: Since its a full DE I thought it would have the advantage of supporting extensions, I guess apparently not
    4. Themeing: Im not sure how themeable it is, granted on Hyprland I used a dotfiles from github but it seems limited (only color schemes).

    Granted what System76 is doing with Cosmic is absolutely incredible and I think one day it can be as pretty (perhaps even more) than Hyprland, my problem is thats far ahead in the future when right now I can use Hyprland and right now it looks pretty.















  • I highly doubt that WWIII will happen (within the next few years), however I forsee the next several years to not be peacful. There will be several (regional/civil) despites that will most likley occur and the chances of any of them escalating is highly unlikley. Here are the conflicts I forsee:

    • Continued Syrian Civil War: wont be pretty but escalation is unlikely
    • Palestinian occupation: Will absolutely continue to be horrific but none of the neighboring Arab counties care enough to escalate (or risk US aid)
    • Russia/Ukraine war: Russia will get some territory and thats about it, probrally just the Russian majority areas. After that the EU will intimidate Russia to back off.
    • India/China border dispute: They’ll make a lot of noise, actural fighting is unlikely
    • US/Canada/Mexico/Greenland conflict: Who knows tbh, most likley Trump is running off his mouth as always
    • China/Taiwan: I severly doubt it, in addition the US is moving microchip manufacturing to the US so strategic value may loosen

    Worst case scenario here is a full blown war between the EU and Russia, the US likley wont get involved (Trump doesnt care about Europe) and neither will China (both counties might send aid respectively). It would probrally end with Russia surrendering followed by them loosing no land and maybe a regime change plus some political reforms.