Comment by justsomehnguy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by justsomehnguy | Hacker News Reader

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> So, it IS a Linux distribution with other userspace that's not made by GNU

So, it IS a Cummins distr^W car with other car parts that's not made by Cummins? Despite the big blue "Ford" everywhere on the car and in the documentation?

Another litmus test I often amused by is how when where is a report of a bazillion of Windows infections (especially those when a user should explicitly run the payload, not just a drive-by) then it's Windows problem, but when there is a report of bazillion of infected Android phones and tablets then of course it's not Linux and therefore it shouldn't be chalked up in any "Amount of infected computers per OS" graphs, lol.

> So, it IS a Linux distribution

Humans tends to omit unnecessary repetition and overall tends to shorten things when it's fits their current situation.

But that doesn't make "an operating system distribution based on Linux kernel with system instrumentation and userspace common to other popular operating systems based on Linux kernel" equal to "Linux distribution" or "Linux".

>Another litmus test I often amused by is how when where is a report of a bazillion of Windows infections (especially those when a user should explicitly run the payload, not just a drive-by) then it's Windows problem, but when there is a report of bazillion of infected Android phones and tablets then of course it's not Linux and therefore it shouldn't be chalked up in any "Amount of infected computers per OS" graphs, lol.

Normally, when it comes to CVEs you tend to see it targeted to the affected piece. E.g.: CVE-2022-38533 affecting GNU binutils and CVE-2023-25139 affecting sprintf() in glibc. Those two things are core parts of most Linux distributions, yet they are still their own distinct thing.

The fact that many times the accused piece of software is Android (like in CVE-2022-20472 or CVE-2023-21079) is just a testament of how big of a monolithic most of the Android userspace is, without ceasing to be a Linux disribution.

>But that doesn't make "an operating system distribution based on Linux kernel with system instrumentation and userspace common to other popular operating systems based on Linux kernel" equal to "Linux distribution" or "Linux".

Well, that's precisely one of the arguments[0] used in favor of naming some Linux distributions as GNU/Linux:

>Since a long name such as GNU/X11/Apache/Linux/TeX/Perl/Python/FreeCiv becomes absurd, at some point you will have to set a threshold and omit the names of the many other secondary contributions. There is no one obvious right place to set the threshold, so wherever you set it, we won't argue against it.

[0] https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#many

I'm perfectly aware of the whole GNU/Linux debacle, thanks.

Counter question, is firmware on some cheap-ass $10 router is a Linux distribution? Is this cheap-ass $10 router IS Linux?

> Those two things are core parts of most Linux distributions, yet they are still their own distinct thing

Well, Explorer is the core part of the most of Windows SKUs, yet when the Explorer is at fault - it's Windows fault and goes in the stats, while millions of infected Android phones suddenly doesn't because it's not Linux, it's Android (emphasis mine). Kindergarten level of logic, yet used by grown-ass men.

>Counter question, is firmware on some cheap-ass $10 router is a Linux distribution? Is this cheap-ass $10 router IS Linux?

Well, I think it is. Although they tend to refer to them as Linux-powered, which is still the same but with a hyphen

>Well, Explorer is the core part of the most of Windows SKUs, yet when the Explorer is at fault - it's Windows fault and goes in the stats, while millions of infected Android phones suddenly doesn't because it's not Linux, it's Android (emphasis mine). Kindergarten level of logic, yet used by grown-ass men.

Yeah, probably those things come mostly from how widely present are both Windows and Android on people's lives. It's a media preference since it wont't get you many clicks to say that there was an error on Explorer :P

Still, Android is a Linux distribution until they find a new kernel

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