Caretaker of DS8.ZONE. Free (Libre) Software enthusiast and promoter. Pronouns: any
Also /u/CaptainBeyondDS8 on reddit and CaptainBeyond on libera.chat.
Why not also recognize systemd, or musl, or kde or gnome or any of the other millions of non GNU packages that are needed to make up a complete OS.
Unironically there might be some value in recognizing “systemd/Linux” as a subfamily of Linux operating systems.
And these days GNU makes up less and less of the core packages that most distros run anymore.
Linux makes up exactly one package on a so-called Linux system.
Apple intentionally makes iPhone-Android interoperability crap in order to sell iPhones. That’s not conspiracy theorizing, Tim Apple blatantly admitted to it.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/7/23342243/tim-cook-apple-rcs-imessage-android-iphone-compatibility
Icedove (Thunderbird) works well enough for me. Maybe the reason it’s “old fashioned” is because it works well enough that it doesn’t need to be changed that often.
In the proprietary software world we’re used to UI’s being redesigned on a regular basis for no user benefit.
Librewolf comes packaged by my distro (GNU Guix) so that’s what I use. I’m sure most “privacy” or “hardened” Firefoxes are more or less interchangeable. The only one that’s really noteworthy is GNU IceCat, because it’s more focused on software-freedom and includes the LibreJS addon, but I switched to Librewolf once it was packaged for Guix.
For me LineageOS is a good baseline. I don’t have anything against “privacy” OS’s but they’re not really for me. I just use F-Droid to get apps and don’t care about compatibility with proprietary stuff so neither microG nor the GrapheneOS sandboxed Play services are of interest to me. I don’t use GrapheneOS because I don’t have or want a Pixel phone.
LineageOS significantly increases the lifespan of devices it supports and that’s important to me. Planned obsolescence is cancer.
My ideal mobile OS would be something like Mobian (or even better, a GNU Guix based distribution) but it should be noted that AOSP is also a Linux based operating system and thus anything derived from that is a Linux mobile OS.
Everyone who has an Android phone “uses Linux without the command line.” Your question, however, seems to be “is it possible to play Windows games on Debian without the command line” (edit: or, more broadly, “how suitable is Debian as a Windows replacement”) which is not the same question.
I don’t understand why we spend so much time praising proprietary software in these communities.
As to your question, I have a separate Windows machine for gaming, but that’s it. I keep one foot in the free world and one in the proprietary. As for productivity tools I can’t think of a proprietary tool I “can’t quit” or that I would pick in favor of a free tool.
Fans of proprietary software have this weird belief that free software users choose inferior tools for purist or idealist reasons. This is offensively ignorant. No one chooses bad tools on purpose; we just consider freedom to be part of the criteria of a good tool.
I dont have a better one though.
I just say non-Android Linux systems. GNU/Linux if I’m talking about that type of system, but there are some like postmarketOS that are strictly not in that group (it’s based on Alpine)
I had hopes we could rise above reddit brain, but you can’t take the reddit out of the redditor so easily.
“Android isn’t Linux,” of course. This is a very obviously false myth that is debunked very easily by simply looking at any Android device or the source code. It is not a myth spread by people who are technologically literate. Yet, this easily verifiable fact upsets Linux fans so much they resort to downvotes and ugly language (I have my ideas why, but it’s probably a waste of time to elaborate in this thread).
Of course, the more savvy among the Linux fandom will admit that Android “contains Linux, but isn’t real Linux” - but “real Linux” is yet another myth; that is, the myth that there is more to Linux than an operating system kernel, a myth that leads to further myths such as the myth of fragmentation, or the myth that distributions are worthless and we need a “unified app store.” It’s a myth that clouds history and assigns the wrong motives to the wrong people and meanings to things that don’t need or deserve them (the misunderstanding that that “Linux” is “about openness” or “against corporations” for example, when large companies are the main contributors to and users of the Linux project). Linus Torvalds himself says he only cares about code, not about freedom or openness or any of that stuff (that’s Richard Stallman’s thing)
The fact that this myth is widely believed is not relevant. We don’t live in a world where a falsehood becomes true if it is widely believed; people used to believe the sun revolved around the earth, for example. Also, a falsehood being widely believed doesn’t mean it deserves to stay unchallenged.
The point of reminding Linux fans that Android is based on their beloved kernel isn’t meant to be a well-actually or anything. It’s a reminder that much of what a so called “Linux phone” can do is already possible without having to switch to an operating system that in many respects is not ready for general use. For example, you can run xfce in Termux - I hope this is enough to disabuse one of the silly notion of “not real Linux.” For some reason. people looking for so-called “Linux phones” desire Android compatibility, and it turns out that because Android itself is Linux, it is far easier for Android to run so-called “Linux apps” than it is for so-called “mobile Linux” to run Android apps.
Android is Linux and that’s a good thing. I should point out that it’s not my preferred Linux operating system - I was a Pinephone early adopter and used to daily drive Mobian, I would prefer that or GNU Guix over Android. Still, not only is it a Linux based operating system, it also has its own rich free software ecosystem backed by F-Droid. It’s very usable once you cut out the Google crap and stick to free software only (or as much as possible).
I wrote more on the “real Linux” myth here in case anyone’s interested in more reading material.
It is repeated in every single damn “Linux phone” thread
Good. The more people pushing back against falsehoods, the better.
I think GNU Guix System scratches all my itches:
guix shell as its interpreter listing all the packages it requires).Previously I used Ubuntu from 2008 to 2009, Trisquel from 2009 to 2014, and Debian from 2014 to 2019.
Android is Linux.
This should be repeated in every “Linux phone” thread.
It’s also possible to install a full GNU userland using Termux, and nowadays a graphical interface is even possible with Termux.
“purple-discord” is the only free software Discord client I know about. It is a plugin for Pidgin and other libpurple based messengers such as Bitlbee.
“rdircd” the “reliable Discord client IRC daemon” might be an alternative but I’ve never used it.
Neither of these run out of the box on mobile but you can run them on a server you control, or maybe you could run them under Termux (have never tried this).
You can also use a Matrix or IRC bridge if you control the Discord “server.”
I don’t count client mods or web wrappers as they are fundamentally coupled to the proprietary client.
Google is also one of the most prolific contributors to Linux, and was the #3 corporate contributor in 2022. If you’re avoiding everything Google had a hand in you literally can’t use any GNU/Linux.
Software freedom applies only to hardware you personally own. It wouldn’t even apply to machines you interact with but do not own (such as ATMs or kiosks) since you aren’t the one who agrees to the proprietary software license.
Stallman himself explains it in his computing FAQ.
I’d just like to interject for moment. What you’re refering to as Linux, is in fact, Steam/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, Steam plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another component of a fully functioning Steam system made useful by Steam Proton, DXVK, and vital Wine components comprising a full OS as defined by Valve.
Linux doesn’t have any GNU in it. Linux is a kernel that GNU runs on top of. That’s what Stallman means by “GNU/Linux.”
Maybe he is a little bitter about his life’s work and philosophy being erased by Linux fans, but that is understandable. Maybe he is a little too bitter.
The notion of there being underrated or overrated distros is, itself, overrated. No, there should not (and cannot) be “one distro to rule them all” because different people have different needs.
Remember that in the free software community we have the freedom to modify and share everything. Those “overrated” distros exist because someone saw a need for them, and they are widely used because other people agree. If Debian was good enough for every use case why do these other distros exist? Why doesn’t everyone just use Debian?
I don’t know if grouping disparate projects under the “community” label has any worthwhile benefit. Given the label is meant to classify related operating systems, the label should provide an accurate description of the basis of the system. A simpler solution would be to just say GNU/Linux is a subcategory of Linux (and maybe even sub-sub-categorize by package manager or init system or whatever makes the most sense). Similarly, I think Android and its derivatives are worthy of being its own classification of Linux operating system (as long as you don’t try to claim “it’s not real Linux” or whatever).
With regards to software compatibility, I think it’s rather the other way around - software written for “Linux” usually works on any POSIX operating system, and sometimes even Windows. Unless you’re talking about binary compatibility, which is meaningless in the Linux space anyway.