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433 points Sporktacular | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0.846s | source
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015a ◴[] No.36995730[source]
> But before you declare this a triumphant moment for desktop Linux, it's important to note that some of these Linux users are not, in fact, using Steam on a desktop. The Linux version "SteamOS Holo" 64-bit is the most popular reported, at just over 42 percent of the Linux slice of pie. That indicates that a huge portion of these Linux users are actually playing on Valve's Steam Deck portable, which runs Linux.

There's such a deep seeded, systemic bias against linux that it actually can never win, to any degree or magnitude, because the moment it starts winning we just move the goal-posts for the flimsiest of reasons to ensure it can't quite claim that victory.

Linux is obviously and clearly the most popular operating system kernel on the planet. Oh, no, that's no good a measure, servers are messy, let's refine it to most popular consumer operating system kernel? Oh... it, could also reasonably claim that title? No no, no Android, that doesn't count. Nope, No Chrome OS either, you can't have that, that's, well, that is linux, but its not. Just nice, pure, desktop linux, yes, perfect, arch linux, kde desktop, that'll never trend up and thus is the perfect new-new definition of desktop linu--wait hold up, I'm getting word this is, not possible, its actually SteamOS? Nope, kill it, that's not desktop linux either, kill it.

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ho_schi ◴[] No.37000079[source]
I wouldn’t label Google/Android as GNU/Linux. Neither MacOS as UNIX. Nor ChromeOS as GNU/Linux. Why? Linux is the shorthand for GNU/Linux.

SteamOS is actually Archlinux which is a mere Linux. Archlinux can be considered as clean sheet Linux, they avoid patching and modifications if possible. So probably even the FSF people would accept it as GNU/Linux?

Even more. The SteamDeck is using a X86_64 CPU and RDNA2 GPU. No hidden firmware locks. So it is an IBM-PC. It counts therefore 100% as Linux. I would even say 120% because it comes pre-installed.

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Zambyte ◴[] No.37000209[source]
> Linux is the shorthand for GNU/Linux.

It shouldn't be. For the same reasons you would shorten TCP/IP to TCP, you should shorten GNU/Linux to GNU. This avoids all of the confusion about what is "really Linux", because when people say that they actually mean GNU.

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1. eru ◴[] No.37000839[source]
There's now at least one Linux distribution that kicks out all the Gnu stuff. See https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/13/chimera_non_gnu_linux...
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2. Zambyte ◴[] No.37002354[source]
There are a few: Android and Alpine are two other notable ones. It's important to note that these are not the same operating system as GNU/Linux. Just like there are many transport protocols that can be used on top of IP that are not TCP.
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3. eru ◴[] No.37007896[source]
Yes, they are Linux, but not Gnu/Linux. That's the point.
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4. Zambyte ◴[] No.37012767{3}[source]
Yes, but it's uncommon to actually want to lump this 4+ operating systems under a single term. People do it by accident, and it causes a lot of confusion about "what's really Linux", as evident by this thread.

There are reasons to want to talk about Linux, but it probably shouldn't be much more common than NT in day to day vocabulary.