this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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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.
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For me I dont agree with "Use the best OS for your job and needs" sometimes I am willing to use a less functional product because I believe that the future would be better with more FOSS software. Morally I cant dual boot windows to play the games that dont support linux because then im supporting microsoft and games that support mircosoft.
I feel the same way. I've been riding the Linux daily driver train for over a decade now. Back when I first made the switch, Proton wasn't a thing. I could dual boot to play the games that wouldn't run on Wine but I instead made the decision to only buy new games that were Linux native and if existing games didn't run on Wine then it was tough bikkies.
But the issue is that most people sadly don't give a shit. They don't give any thought at all about sending money to Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple, etc. despite the fact that those companies are playing a part in actively degrading the user experience (amongst other things). They don't think about how they're screwing over themselves in the long run as well as the younger generations. Most people don't think much beyond what the advertising tells them to buy, convenience and ease of use.
I wish people made more ethical consumer choices but they just don't. And that habit won't change while big business has collectively billion dollar advertising budgets, gets away with monopolising and centralising and has government and regulators in their back pockets.
Not only do people generally not do ethical consumerism, but also often ridicule those who do. Quite infuriating, and would be astonishing if it wasn't so predictably human nature. Presumably it is painful to be reminded that one did not go through the effort to make a conscientious decision but someone else did, and so one belittles the decision and the person willing to make it.
That's ok if you look at it that way. But at the end of the day, it's just a tool like any other. Personally I find it really silly to put any moral questions into it because I don't believe it's worth my time to think about it, lose time on silly things and/or sacrifice the quality of my work. I'm not trying to imply anything about Linux, btw, it's the same for the other ways around. It just feels stupid because it ends up like a political discussion, when it really shouldn't be. You have the option to use basically anything and choosing to limit yourself over that is just plain stupid imo. You could make the arguments for how they process data, which is a whole other discussion, but then again, there are plenty of workarounds to all of those problems (which is exactly what some people are doing with virtualization, different machines entirely, OS tweaks, etc., which is fine, because they're benefiting from it). Nothing against FOSS or otherwise, btw, I do agree about the need to support, but there are so many other ways to do it. Just using it isn't enough, sadly. As the point of this OP is - it's also market adoption, marketing itself, etc. None of this changes the fact that using certain tool(s) (e.g. gdb) is best done on a certain OS (e.g. a Linux distro) at a given time.