Simple Proofs that Linux Is Not an Operating System with Ubuntu and Debian
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This is a topic that seems to keep coming around. Non-technical people, and often even technical ones, use the term Linux to refer to a family of operating systems in a loose, confusing way that leads people to think that Linux itself is an operating system and that distros are just "flavours" of it. But this cannot be true. There are countless reasons why people use this term, but mostly it is used like "cloud". Technical people do (or should) know that cloud computing is a very technical, very specific, very defined thing that has no reason to ever be talked about outside of IT circles, it is an "under the hood" architectural element - but we know that lay people use the term loosely to mean "hosted services on the Internet" and more recently to mean "synchronized storage" - things that have no relationship to the actual IT term.
Linux is no different. Linux itself is a kernel, that's all, no ifs ands or buts. It is not an OS, a kernel is a big component of an OS but no one has yet made a kernel OS and one could argue that conceptually you can't because the term kernel refers to it being less than an OS and OS means more than a kernel.
We use the term Linux OS, mostly legitimately, to refer to any OS that is based on the Linux kernel and is therefore part of a "Linux family." This isn't really a good usage, but it has been a quarter of a century now and the use isn't going anywhere. But that just means that it is a Linux OS, not that Linux is an OS. The term is also used in many different ways - often not to mean only a Linux kernel based OS but often to mean a GNU OS as people often don't intend to include Android. Even more confusingly, people who use Linux to mean an OS often include unrelated things like FreeBSD, Solaris or ESXi which share nothing with Linux at all. At which point we've gone from some fudge factor to outright, completely wrong usage. Backwards, even. Like calling red blue.
Digging into things that people think are examples that must prove that Linux is an OS we can very trivially prove that it is not. One of the best, is Debian. Debian is one of the best known and most popular Linux distros and forms the foundation of Canonical's Ubuntu distribution. Debian is truly the quintessential Linux distribution, few things say Linux as much as Debian, right?
Well it turns out that Debian isn't as much Linux as you might think. Sure, when most people use or talk about Debian they mean Debian Linux (or Debian with Linux / on Linux.) Debian itself is a large ecosystem of packages, release management, testing and so forth built off of a base of the GNU userspace. Debian is really a GNU distribution, not a Linux distribution, more than anything; but it is so much more than just GNU.
But Debian can come in a few different forms today. One is Debian / Linux, of course. But there is also Debian / kFreeBSD which is Debian using the FreeBSD kernel (often referred to as kFreeBSD.) Debian / kFreeBSD has no Linux at all, none. But it is just as much Debian as Debian / Linux is. An even less common variant is Debian / Hurd where the Debian OS uses the GNU Hurd Mach kernel, the same as Mac OSX.
This is another important distinction: Apple Mac OSX is not considered to be a Hurd or Mach OS, no one would ever say that. Debian is not considered to be a Mach OS, either. Yet Debian using Linux is no different than either of these. Debian and Mac OSX are clearly different operating systems, but can optionally share a kernel.
Taking this even farther, Debian's offspring Ubuntu has been similarly ported to different kernels. Traditional Ubuntu is, of course, running on the Linux kernel. But a major Ubuntu release just recently is Microsoft's "Ubuntu on Windows" for developers where Ubuntu runs on WSL or the Windows Subsystem for Linux. It is very important that WSL is not Linux and contains no Linux code, none. This means that Ubuntu is running on the Windows Kernel (NTKernel), rather than on Linux!
Think about the ramifications of this. Ubuntu is not Linux, Ubuntu can use the Linux kernel or it can use the Windows kernel! Everyone agrees that Ubuntu is the OS. Otherwise, we'd have to say that Ubuntu is Windows! In order for Linux to be an OS, that would force Ubuntu on the Windows kernel to be Windows - clearly not the case. Obviously the kernel is never the OS, although in some cases they are closely tied together and in others they are rather loosely tied together. Most operating systems that people like to call Linux are actually the ones least likely to be tied to the Linux kernel; using it primarily out of convention.
It should be clear that by technology we know that Linux is a kernel, a kernel is not an OS and OSes are not intimately tied to kernels (in most cases.) When we go to real world examples with GNU, Debian, Ubuntu, Vmware ESXi, Mac OSX, FreeBSD, Ubuntu on Windows and so forth we regularly find that if we really think about it, we cannot possibly actually see Linux as the OS because it becomes nonsensical. And the more we try to insist that it is, the more obvious the mistakes start to become with things like VMware ESXi which is neither Linux nor UNIX nor implementing UNIX compatibility nor even an operating system... being mistaken for Linux as an OS!
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Simple solution: When referring to Linux as an OS, add the word kernel.
Example: Hey bro, I'm running Linux kernel on my PC.
Oh yeah? What OS?
Ubuntu!
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If we could fix people, we'd actually just get them to drop the word Linux completely. Nowhere else do we mention which kernel we are using!
Saying "I run Linux" is not far off from saying "I run BtrFS". No one confuses their filesystem for their OS, but they do the kernel.
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@scottalanmiller but as you said it has been decades now and it is an ingrained understanding even to the uneducated masses.
So as professionals, we have to simply be more specific and know that anyone not being specific is either generalizing on purpose or, more likely, simply has no idea WTF they are talking about. -
@JaredBusch said in Simple Proofs that Linux Is Not an Operating System with Ubuntu and Debian:
@scottalanmiller but as you said it has been decades now and it is an ingrained understanding even to the uneducated masses.
So as professionals, we have to simply be more specific and know that anyone not being specific is either generalizing on purpose or, more likely, simply has no idea WTF they are talking about.Sadly, it gets brought up because so often people claiming to be experts use the standard misuse of the term and claim it as proof that Linux is an OS. Of course they always get snippy when you ask them to install and run said OS, since it does not exist. But they keep on doing it.
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@scottalanmiller said in Simple Proofs that Linux Is Not an Operating System with Ubuntu and Debian:
@JaredBusch said in Simple Proofs that Linux Is Not an Operating System with Ubuntu and Debian:
@scottalanmiller but as you said it has been decades now and it is an ingrained understanding even to the uneducated masses.
So as professionals, we have to simply be more specific and know that anyone not being specific is either generalizing on purpose or, more likely, simply has no idea WTF they are talking about.Sadly, it gets brought up because so often people claiming to be experts use the standard misuse of the term and claim it as proof that Linux is an OS. Of course they always get snippy when you ask them to install and run said OS, since it does not exist. But they keep on doing it.
It can be fixed. But it needs to start with IT using it correctly first.
And teachers.
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@Tim_G said in Simple Proofs that Linux Is Not an Operating System with Ubuntu and Debian:
@scottalanmiller said in Simple Proofs that Linux Is Not an Operating System with Ubuntu and Debian:
@JaredBusch said in Simple Proofs that Linux Is Not an Operating System with Ubuntu and Debian:
@scottalanmiller but as you said it has been decades now and it is an ingrained understanding even to the uneducated masses.
So as professionals, we have to simply be more specific and know that anyone not being specific is either generalizing on purpose or, more likely, simply has no idea WTF they are talking about.Sadly, it gets brought up because so often people claiming to be experts use the standard misuse of the term and claim it as proof that Linux is an OS. Of course they always get snippy when you ask them to install and run said OS, since it does not exist. But they keep on doing it.
It can be fixed. But it needs to start with IT using it correctly first.
And teachers.
Absolutely. IT using it wrong, and especially arguing that we should use it wrongly, will guarantee that it will never be fixed. Sadly, kernels and OSes are actually "too technical" for the average IT pro to fully understand so they actually get lost.
It's not just bad in that we aren't correct, it actively undermines much of the ecosystem. Things like "Linux is X" or "Linux does Y" are rarely true. Like "Linux is free". that's not fully true, it can be or it might not be. Linux runs Gnome. Again, it can, but we don't know that it will.
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@scottalanmiller very true and very well explained, but still I really doubt it will make any difference in the future. Linux name is established as it is, and even Linus doesn't bother to make any difference
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I agree with IT using it wrong. I know the difference but still sometimes slip up when using using it.
And it doesn't help when certain distros still use the word Linux has part of the name. Why would a user even need to know that its Linux? -
Here is a guy trolling about this, it might be Curtis under a new profile. He got upset when he was shown to be foolish and took it offline and made it personal when it was really obvious he was caught.
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1993932-differences-between-linux-and-red-hat-linux
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To 99% of people using casual language, there are three desktop operating systems; Windows, Mac, and Linux.
This is easy, common language.
If you eliminate using "Linux" as a term for "operating system", then there are no longer three desktop OSes, but untold numbers because now it's Windows, Mac, Ubuntu, FreeBSD, Mint, whatever, hundreds of them. And yet somehow in the back of people's minds the thing that connects all those is something something about Linux something something.
Sure it would be nice to always use perfect accurate language like the good cyborgs we all want to be, but at the end of the day, this is just casual language.
If my grandpa says to me "I'd like you install Linux on my computer" (which he has), I'm not going to give him a blank stare and act like, "what, he wants a kernel or something?"
Of course not, it means he wants me to install Mint or Ubuntu probably. And trying to correct his language not only makes me look like a cyborg, but also a douche.Unfortunately, it seems like we are bound to use common vernacular or face looking like a bunch of elitist douches.
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@guyinpv said in Simple Proofs that Linux Is Not an Operating System with Ubuntu and Debian:
To 99% of people using casual language, there are three desktop operating systems; Windows, Mac, and Linux.
This is easy, common language.
It's not easy. It's useless. What is a Linux desktop mean? ChromeOS? Android? KDE? Gnome? Linux is not a desktop. If people include Linux, why not iOS?
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@guyinpv said in Simple Proofs that Linux Is Not an Operating System with Ubuntu and Debian:
Sure it would be nice to always use perfect
accuratelanguage like the good cyborgs we all want to be, but at the end of the day, this is justcasualuseless language.At the end of the day, it has made the people who use that "casual" language unable to communicate. They've stopped using language and started making sounds mimicking language. Literally, it is like a parrot. We don't say that a parrot uses language, we say that it repeats sounds. At the point that language ceases being a form of communication, it is just people parroting sounds.
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@guyinpv said in Simple Proofs that Linux Is Not an Operating System with Ubuntu and Debian:
If my grandpa says to me "I'd like you install Linux on my computer" (which he has), I'm not going to give him a blank stare and act like, "what, he wants a kernel or something?"
Of course not, it means he wants me to install Mint or Ubuntu probably. And trying to correct his language not only makes me look like a cyborg, but also a douche.But just installing Ubuntu when he wanted ChromeOS is not useful either.
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@guyinpv said in Simple Proofs that Linux Is Not an Operating System with Ubuntu and Debian:
Unfortunately, it seems like we are bound to use common vernacular or face looking like a bunch of elitist douches.
All people every where look like elitist douches to the lowest functional level of society when they attempt to decipher what they mean. If you don't look like an elitist to a lot of people, you are unable to help them. To at least 20% of society, McDonald's cashiers seem like elitist douches for trying to get the details of an order right when people ask for a Whopper there. Just saying "did you mean a Big Mac?" is being an elitist to a lot of people. Yet if they didn't clarify, they'd actually be a douche. In reality, it's far more elitist and douchy to make up words or to parrot ones when you know you don't know what they mean or to mock or hate people for trying to understand you than being the person trying to help.
Accuracy is never elitist. But calling it that is.
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I've been told by a doctor that anyone who uses adverbs instead of just using adjectives for everything incorrectly is elitist - that even elementary school educations are elitist to people with doctorates.
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To the average person, they will call anything a "shirt" even if it's technically a henley or a polo or an oxford or a tank top, etc.
Who is harmed by it?
The McDonalds worker will want to clarify with someone asking for a Whopper, but what if they simply ask for a "hamburger"? Well, perhaps technically what makes something a hamburger is the "kernel" of a patty of beef. But if they ask for a hamburger, you simply clarify what kind of hamburger, what kind of stuff do they want on top of the kernel?
My point is simply that we still require common language, that's all. If people cannot refer to "Linux" as "that OS which is not Windows or Mac", then what do they have left?
We can teach people to say "Linux distro", sure. But that will always simply be cut back to "Linux" just to shorten the phrase. Because that's how language evolves it seems, people shortcut and abbreviate things.
It's like people who refer to a "truck" when they really need to say "pickup truck". They just drop one word and you still get the drift. Yet other people refer to their SUVs as trucks, because they can pull things.
I don't know, I just think it's common language is all. No other words have emerged that are better suited. If we dropped "Linux" and just said "distro", well who is to say the distro is built on Linux?
The common thing is not that it's just a distro, or that it's just an OS, but that it's built on Linux, hence people just call various OSes "Linux". -
@scottalanmiller said in Simple Proofs that Linux Is Not an Operating System with Ubuntu and Debian:
@guyinpv said in Simple Proofs that Linux Is Not an Operating System with Ubuntu and Debian:
If my grandpa says to me "I'd like you install Linux on my computer" (which he has), I'm not going to give him a blank stare and act like, "what, he wants a kernel or something?"
Of course not, it means he wants me to install Mint or Ubuntu probably. And trying to correct his language not only makes me look like a cyborg, but also a douche.But just installing Ubuntu when he wanted ChromeOS is not useful either.
This is the power of marketing.
ChromeOS is a brand, a standalone "thing". We all know a BigMac or a Whopper, everything else is just a "burger".Ubuntu, while certainly is marketed well, has still done so on the back of being a "Linux thing", and so the two are inextricably linked and therefore interchangeable. Like "pickup truck" versus "truck".
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This is one thing I actually don't screw up since this was clarified for me
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But we still have to function in the real world.
I saw this list at the bottom of some website:
Here they are, referencing "in Linux" like it's an operating system itself.
Don't forget how the internet works, with search engines, and how websites design content around SEO, which is tied to how search engines work.
If someone wants to learn how to use the
findcommand, they aren't going to search for "how to use find in a linux distro". They probably won't even search for "how to search for files when I have bash" or whatever.The fact is, most all the content on the web uses the single word "Linux" to generally represent everything. I certainly do it. I search for "how do I do X in linux". Well "in linux" makes it sound like linux is a standalone operating system. Just like how I'd search for "how to do X in Windows". I don't mention the version, or the kernel structure.
Nobody is going to search for "how to do X in [insert one particular distro only] with linux kernel" because that will likely reduce the number of valid results they might get, and literally makes little sense grammatically.The world will continue to say "linux" to represent any operating system running linux kernel which is found on a desktop.
And speaking of marketing, nobody is going to search for "how to do x in linux cell phones". The branding of Android has separated it from its kernel. "How to do x in android", much more likely.
When we go from "Ubuntu, the cool Linux operating system", to "Ubuntu, a cool operating system", then we can make progress. Stop saying "Bubbagoo, a new Linux operating system distro thingy", and instead just say "Bubbagoo, a new cool operating system".
It's the marketing that matters. Stop presenting the distros as a set of core underlying technologies, and simply market it as a new thing period. Put the tech stack in some footer link somewhere for nerds to find if they want.
