Linux

48162 readers

628 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
No misinformation
No NSFW content
No hate speech, bigotry, etc

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

311

Noob Question Thread: Ask Any Questions About Linux! (lemmy.ml)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

448 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I thought I'll make this thread for all of you out there who have questions but are afraid to ask them. This is your chance!

I'll try my best to answer any questions here, but I hope others in the community will contribute too!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

That's the same on ANY platform, but windows is far worse because most apps ship a DLL and -never- update the damn thing. With Linux, it's a little bit more transparent. (edit: unless you do the stupid shit and link statically, but again in the brave new world of Rust and Go having 500 Mb binaries for a 5 Kb program is acceptable)

Also, applications use the API/ABI of a particular library. Now, if the developers of the said library actually change something in the library's behavior with an update, your app won't work it no more unless you go and actually update your own code and find everything that's broken.

So as you can understand, this is a maintenance burden. A lot of apps delegate this to a later time, or something that happens sometimes with FOSS is that the app goes unmaintained somewhat, or in some cases the app customizes the library so much, that you just can't update that shit anymore. So you fix on a particular version of the library.