Category: History

Meta: The State Of Linux-Tips #19

Today we’re just going to have a look at some of what’s going on here at Linux-Tips, with an article about the state of Linux-Tips. It’s a regular thing that I try to do. I don’t always remember and I don’t always have anything new to share. So, as you can see, there are fewer meta articles than there are months the site has existed.

I almost didn’t write one this month but fate decided to be a cruel mistress…

See, I’m not always ahead of the curve. A lot of the time, I write an article the night before it is due to be published. I often have a spare article that can fill in if I am somehow prevented from writing that article. Alas, I do not have such an article, though I did consider updating an older article.

But, I mentioned fate. Fate is a fickle mistress and it was fate that decided my internet connection would barely work – when it did work. So, rather than take my sleep meds, I stayed awake late just so that I could write this article.

I had another article planned, but it requires some research and screenshots. Those have to be uploaded. My current connection speed isn’t all that dissimilar to dial-up rates. There will be no uploading of images tonight.

Sure, you might think that I’d learn my lesson and always have a spare article, but that’s just not going to happen. Nobody has been willing to write any articles lately, so that means I must write all of them myself. To do so with this consistency is, frankly, amazing. I dare say that I’m unique in these regards, especially with this time frame.

So, you get a meta article…

It takes longer to write these than it takes to write a regular article, but it’s less bandwidth than the article I had planned. I’m going to take my sleep meds and hope this is finished in time.

The State Of Linux-Tips:

This is a good thing…

During those moments of interruption, where I couldn’t even load the full page (it’s huge) to write the article, I was seeing 12 to 15 people online at the same time. That’s insane. That’s well and truly insane.

I used to be amazed if I had 20 visitors in a day. This month, I’m averaging almost 700 visits per day. I am so grateful for the opportunity to share my writing with that many people. Yes, those numbers pale against the big sites, but they’re huge to me.

So, not much has changed since the last meta article. The same browsers are performing the same as they did last month. The same web pages are proportionally the same as they are this month. To save me some time, why not read the previous article:

Meta: The State Of Linux-Tips #18

The big news was in the last meta article:

Meta: Getting Indexed In Bing

I am so excited about being indexed in Bing! However, it means pretty much nothing in terms of the total number of visitors. They say that Bing has 3% of the search market, but that’s not what I’m seeing.

I realize Bing just started sending me traffic, but they’ve sent 85 visitors out of over 20,000 visitors. I mean, that’s great and all, but they don’t amount to much. Today has been a good day with over 1000 visitors. Bing’s traffic is a tiny amount – but I’m still so grateful and so excited.

More:

You know, at the top of each article is a tool to help you share the articles with various link services and social media services. I should probably remove it as it’s wasted bandwidth. As near as I can tell, it has never been used – and it has been there since the very first day of the site’s existence.

Ad revenue doesn’t add up to a whole lot. We will chew through 35 GB worth of CDN traffic this month. I do get a donation now and then, and I appreciate it greatly. It goes straight into the costs of running this site. As I’ve said many times, regardless of the financial aspect, the site will remain running – until I either kick the bucket or run out of stuff to say.

I have done some SEO stuff. The site has a DR of 30 on AHREFS. SEMRush seems to also like the site. It’s interesting to pay attention to that stuff, but I have no idea what I’m doing. SEO is beyond my ability. Heck, I’m not even a qualified admin!

I did apply to be an affiliate of a service I love, but they not only turned us down they refused to send an email explaining why. I was pretty disappointed in the company, but I still use their product. Frankly, it’s the best in the industry. They approve sites with less traffic and they approve sites with far more controversial topics. Ah well…

So, yeah, not a heck of a lot has changed. Copy and paste the results from last month, add more traffic, add more articles, add more words, and you’ve got the same thing going on this month.

And that’s okay. It’s not explosive growth, but it’s consistent growth. As a businessperson, I’ve long since learned to appreciate consistent growth over bursts that can be inconsistent and harmful. The site’s in a good place right now and let’s hope it continues to grow.

Closure:

Again, I consider it quite an honor to get this much traffic. The list of things I do not know could fill a book, but I share what I do know. I don’t think we’ll ever suffer from a lack of article ideas. If we do, we can just repackage the old articles and pretend they’re new – just like all the other sites do!

Thanks for reading! If you want to help, or if the site has helped you, you can donate, register to help, write an article, or buy inexpensive hosting to start your site. If you scroll down, you can sign up for the newsletter, vote for the article, and comment.

Meta: Getting Indexed In Bing

Today’s article will be largely a meta article, not about Linux but about getting indexed in Bing. For whatever reason, people sometimes have issues getting indexed in Bing and I was among those people.

To cut to the chase, I’ll simply say that this is no longer a problem for this site. We’re now indexed by Bing and the site shows up in their search results. In this article, I’ll tell you how. It may take me a few words to get to that point, but I’ll explain how we managed to get indexed in Bing.

So, first, let’s just say:

Welcome Bing Users!

As you may know, there’s a search engine called Bing. The search engine is owned by Microsoft and has been around since 2009. This isn’t Microsoft’s first search engine, but this incarnation has been around for a while now.

While we’re Linux users here, the Bing search engine has been known to give out some pretty solid results. Even still, Bing is far less popular than Google and they have about 3% of the web search market share.

Considering how their default browser (Edge, available for Linux) defaults to Bing as the search engine, it’s rather amazing how little people care about their search. I’ve used Bing extensively and found it gave me adequate results, especially when I used personalized search and searched from a logged-in account. Yes, they happily gave me Linux-related search results.

Bing also provides the search engine results for Yahoo. Yes, Yahoo still exists. Yes, people still use Yahoo. I am not one of those people, but I appreciate what Yahoo did for the web back in the day. So, while they’re surely a dinosaur, they’re still around and still useful for a few people.

The problem was, that I couldn’t get this site indexed by Bing. By that, Bing would happily crawl the site but they wouldn’t list me in their index. Even searching for the exact domain name showed zero results for this site. It’s a trivial amount of traffic, but I want everyone to be able to find this site and the information here.

Getting Indexed In Bing:

This site published the first article on March 6th, 2021. There is a new article published every other day, many of them are even acceptable! No matter what I did, Bing would not index Linux-Tips.

I did everything correctly. There’s no blackhat SEO, no overly weighted meta tags, no keyword stuffing, no hidden text, and no paying for links in link farms. All the links to this site (and there are thousands of them) are organic.

I even used IndexNow. I’ve used IndexNow from just about day one. That is a method of notifying Bing that new content has been published. They got this notification almost every other day. It does appear to lag sometimes, but that wouldn’t make any major difference. Bing knew the site existed and they refused to index the site. Not only that, Bing knew there was constant new content created and still refused to index the site.

I mostly ignored this. I signed up for Bing’s Webmaster Tools and authenticated the site on day one. They were even granted access to Google’s Search Console, meaning they had even more information about the site. Still, they refused to index the site.

This went on for years. Linux-Tips is more than two years old.

The Rest Of The Story:

Back in 2021, I found a form that I could fill out. I was frustrated and in a rush, so I simply gave them a link to the home page and said something like, “I am not indexed.” I hit the submit button and nothing happened. The site was already full of a lot of content, so I assumed they could figure that out on their own.

They said they’d respond, but they never did. Speaking of which, they still haven’t responded via email to anything I’ve sent them. But, no… No, they didn’t respond. I guess I don’t blame them. I left a vague message.

Earlier this month, I decided I was going to see what I could do to get to the bottom of this. I searched and searched the internet, trying to figure out why the site wasn’t indexed in Bing. One of the things I learned was that sometimes Bing will mistakenly block a site and that block can be removed. I’m not sure if that’s what happened in this case, but it seems the most likely.

There’s Another Form!

See, I found another form by following various Bing help files. This is the link you need to know about:

Bing Webmaster’s Support

For whatever reason, that link isn’t loading properly for me at this point. None of the Bing tools are working for me at this moment in time. I’m unsure if that’s me, if that’s them, or if they moved the form since I looked at it yesterday.

NOTE/UPDATE: The link does work if I use a VPN. Something weird is going on with their site. My presumption is that they’ll fix it. This is above my pay grade.

You’ll have to log in, of course. If you already have a Webmaster Tools account it will populate some of the fields for you. If you don’t already have said account, you’ll probably need to make one. I already had the account. I’m reasonably sure that you can’t do much of anything without an account.

If the above link doesn’t work for you, search around for the support form and that’s the form you need. You should be able to use a drop-down menu to select indexing as the problem and you should be able to specify your site.

This is what I did…

I made my comment as brief as possible while as technical as required. I explained all those things I explained earlier in this article. The information I gave them was brief, factual, and detailed. I had to try something!

The Results:

After I submitted my information on the form, making sure to select the correct options from the drop-down menu, I got an email confirming that they’d received my request. It was a canned email, an autoresponder message, and it went straight into the junk folder without me seeing it.

Amusingly, I use an outlook.com email address for this and it still went straight to spam. I never got another message. This is what that message said:

Thank you for contacting Bing Webmaster Support Team.

This email is confirmation that we have received your request for https://linux-tips.us/ and created the following Request REQ00063891 . Your ticket is being assigned to a Global Support Webmaster Engineer who will be contacting you about the next steps to resolve your issue. We will get back to you in 10 days.

Take care and stay safe!

Sincerely,
Microsoft Bing

I haven’t heard a word from them since – and that’s okay by me.

Sure enough, on the 17th of this month, I started getting traffic (in my server logs) from Bing users. When I logged into the Bing Webmaster tools, all the data was populated, showing hundreds of indexed pages. Everything was as it should be and even IndexNow appeared to be working properly.

For once, read the conclusion – as it contains more details.

Conclusion:

If you’re having trouble getting indexed in Bing, and you meet their guidelines – including having many articles full of unique and formatted content (along with the rest of the guidelines, like meta tags and the like) – then simply root around on their site until you find the hidden contact form and send them an email. 

In that email, be direct and informative – but don’t waste their time. Let them know the good things you’ve done and the good things you’re doing. Show them that you’ve followed the rules and that your site deserves to be indexed on its merits. After all, the worst thing they can do is just ignore you and not index your site. 

But, of course, make sure those things are true. Read their guidelines and become familiar with what they expect. If you’re using WordPress, it’s trivial to follow the rules. Grab one of the many SEO plugins and set it up correctly. They all have adequate help files. I am not willing to spend the money hiring an SEO expert. The site is expensive enough.

Truly, I’m not an SEO expert. Heck, I’m barely qualified to be a WordPress admin, and some folks would say I’m not even qualified to do that. At the end of the day, if you’re not being indexed by Bing, just send them an email. It worked for me and I figured I’d share the results with other people who may have their sites and indexing issues.

Thanks for reading! If you want to help, or if the site has helped you, you can donate, register to help, write an article, or buy inexpensive hosting to start your site. If you scroll down, you can sign up for the newsletter, vote for the article, and comment.

Meta: The State Of Linux-Tips #17

Today you’re just going to get a quick meta article, where I go over the state of Linux-Tips (this site, obviously). It has been a while since I did the last one, so it’s time to do another one. I’m thinking I’ll keep this one brief. I’ve had an adventure today, dealing with some medical stuff, so a low-energy article is a good idea.

I try to do a meta article every month. I haven’t always managed to do so, but it’s a sorta goal. It’ll be fun to share what’s going on. It’s not all that informative, but I try to make it as interesting as this kind of article can be.

So, if you want a day off you can just skip this article. If you’re interested in what’s going on, read on and enjoy the meta article.

The State Of Linux-Tips #17

So, traffic really hasn’t grown or changed much. This month we’re going to do better than last month, but not drastically so. Google appears a little annoyed with the site again, but I don’t worry any more. Frankly, the site gets plenty of traffic as it is. 

Someone did donate recently. I’m grateful for that. The funds went to pay for hosting, though I suppose they more specifically went straight to my CDN provider. Why is it worth the money to pay for a CDN?

The site loads quickly no matter where you are on the planet. On top of that, you’ve never seen a minute of real downtime. You might have seen a temporary screen while updates happened, but the server has pretty much 100% uptime. I decided to add a monitor fairly recently – but in that time the server hosting the site has gone down.

This site did no such thing. The CDN still presented you with static content, which is what this site mostly is. If you attempted to interact with the site during the outage, the CDN (it’s both WordPress and LiteSpeed specific) will cache your request and process it when the site is back online. So, you’ve almost certainly never seen the site go down.

Now that I said that, watch there be some big outage that takes the site offline for a few hours! Ah well… I’ll risk it. If you whois the domain, you’ll see the nameservers which will clue you in as to which CDN I use. They’re very specialized and likely won’t work for many of you. I think it’s worth it, but it’s an annoying monthly fee. (Even if I have to fund it entirely by myself, I will continue doing so. Donations are nice, but the site will survive without them.)

Anyhow, thanks for the donation! (I have to find the motivation to wrap the site up as a PDF to give away to people who donate, something planned for the future, but I’ll make sure it’s available for them. That seems like a good idea. 

Some Stats:

So, like always, the VAST MAJORITY of my traffic comes from Google. I suppose the state of Linux-Tips depends heavily on the traffic.

Well, this might not seem like much, but last month we went through more than 35 GB of bandwidth. I’m having some issues with backups, so the site was also using almost 20 GB of disk space. That disk space consumption has since been reduced significantly!

Some Demographics:

Roughly 92% of my traffic is from Linux users.
Just about 80% of my traffic is from Chrome/Chromium-based browsers.
Roughly 80% of my traffic originates in the United States.

The top 3 articles read in the past month:

Find Out Which Display-Manager You’re Using
How Do I Install Linux (A General Guide)
How To: Disable Sleep And Hibernation on Ubuntu Server

Other Stuff:

The site is attacked about 400 times on an average day.
Most of the attacks appear to come from compromised servers.
Only about 70 people have signed up for the newsletter.
AWStats claims I’ve displayed > 600,000 pages in May.
There are about 50 articles that show up in Google’s top ten listings.
As I learn more, I realize I have no business being a WordPress admin.
This changed! In May people spent an average of 171 seconds on the site.
One visitor was using Symbian OS.
Four visits were from someone using Sun Solaris.
We’re now over 280,000 words on the site.
It’d take you 19+ hours to read all of that.

Closure:

And there you have it… You have another meta article, an article about the state of Linux-Tips. You probably didn’t learn anything important, but now you know what’s going on here and what you can expect in the future. I expect to continue to write these articles for the foreseeable future. Don’t forget that I accept on-topic guest articles. (I get so many requests for stuff that’s not on-topic. I’ve stopped responding to the people too lazy to read the site and understand what’s going on here.)

Thanks for reading! If you want to help, or if the site has helped you, you can donate, register to help, write an article, or buy inexpensive hosting to start your site. If you scroll down, you can sign up for the newsletter, vote for the article, and comment.

A Few Geeky YouTube Channels

Today we’ll have an absolutely meaningless article, as I share a few geeky YouTube channels with you for your appreciation. I’ve done similar before, with the ‘few good channels‘ article. It was fairly well received and today will be a bit similar, though probably a bit shorter. After all, there have been a few long articles lately. I might as well mix things up a bit.

I am also curious about AdSense. I’m not sure what’s happening, but it hasn’t registered any clicks lately. That’s not good! So, if you want to do me a favor, you can whitelist the site and let me know if you saw any ads. (Don’t click on them just to help me! Ads should only be clicked if you have a legitimate interest in the product! Otherwise, Google gets made and throws a hissy fit and takes away some credit for clicks.)

If you check the headline for this article, it should kinda give you an idea of what’s to come. The previous video article was just about Linux channels. This article will have very little to do with Linux itself, so it’s even an appropriate article for our Windows-geek friends!

As a general rule, I’m not a huge TV watcher, but I do watch video content. I have more video content to watch than I will ever have time to watch. A great deal of what I watch has to do with automobiles, but I make time for other subjects – such as Linux and geeky topics. Today, I’m just going to share a few geeky YouTube channels. That’s it…

Geeky YouTube Channels:

So, crack open your favorite brand of popcorn…

Open up your favorite media-watching browser…

Take the rest of today’s to-do list and throw it straight in the trash…

Ready? 

The very first channel I want to share is called TechMoan. This guy loves old stuff, mostly media players. If it plays video or (especially) reproduces sound, he’s probably interested. From Edison’s wax disks modern MP3 players with Bluetooth, he’s interested in it. His videos are full of useful (and delightfully useless) information. If there’s a media format out there, he wants to be able to play it. It’s awesome!

Link:
TechMoan

Next on the list of geeky YouTube channels would be LGR. That once stood for “Lazy Game Reviews”, but now it just stands for nothing. He’s long since changed direction and covers old computers. For the people who read this site, this might be the most interesting of the channels. LGR covers a lot of older computers and tech. You’ll find a goodly amount of content from the 80s and 90s, and even some modern stuff sprinkled in for good measure.

Link:
LGR

Finally, on my list of geeky YouTube channels you might enjoy, is a channel from a real museum. They don’t have dinosaur bones and you won’t find a wooly mammoth in their museum. What you will find is the dinosaurs and mammoths of the computer industry. From some of the earliest computers to some of the obscure computers that fall into the ‘also ran’ category, you’ll find it all. All sorts of long-format videos will inform and entertain you for hours. The CHM (Computer History Museum) backlog is large enough so that you might never catch up and watch them all.

Link:
CHM

Closure:

There you have it! You have a new article. This one doesn’t require much effort – but might require a bunch of your time. There are other geeky YouTube channels, but I figured I’d limit this to just a few of my favorites. I watch some other channels with a more narrow topic and I picked these for their (moderately) broader appeal.

Given what I know about my readers, I think almost all of them will appreciate these geeky channels. Feel free to leave a comment sharing your favorite geeky videos. I’ll have to manually approve them (as they’d contain links) but I’m pretty good at doing that promptly. The system’s pretty good at letting me know when there are new comments! It’s also pretty good at avoiding false positives where spam is concerned.

Thanks for reading! If you want to help, or if the site has helped you, you can donate, register to help, write an article, or buy inexpensive hosting to start your site. If you scroll down, you can sign up for the newsletter, vote for the article, and comment.

The “Linux” or “GNU/Linux” Debate

Today, just for fun, we’re going to touch on the “Linux” or “GNU/Linux” debate. It sounds like a fun subject to cover and who knows where it will lead us. It also sounds like something the Linux-Tips readers might enjoy hashing out in a forum somewhere. So, for the “Linux” or “GNU/Linux Debate, read on!

This article will have a couple of main points. Let’s start with the first…

See, this seemed like a fine question to ask ChatGPT. This is a subject I figured the AI would do well with – and I think they did. So, a giant portion of this article will have been written by AI and then I’ll follow up with my thoughts on the “Linux” or “GNU/Linux” debate.

Most of my readers will already be familiar with this. They’ll have seen people refer to it (a whole distro, multiple distros, the whole subject matter) as “Linux” and have seen others refer to the various distros as “GNU/Linux”. If not, the AI will do a wonderful job explaining the difference to you. So, we don’t need to cover that in the intro! Let’s let the AI take care of that.

I’ve seen people get into pretty heated arguments over this, more so with the GNU/Linux folks, but we can be civil about it all. There’s no need to get upset and the section about my point of view may help with some of that.

Ready? Well then, let’s discuss…

The “Linux” or “GNU/Linux” Debate:

As mentioned in the introduction, I decided to let the chatGPT take a whack at this. However, I didn’t ask what you might have expected me to ask. Instead, I asked a bit of a loaded and biased question. Here’s the question that I asked chatGPT:

With approximately six hundred words, explain the merits of it calling Linux “GNU/Linux” instead of just calling it “Linux”.

So, right off the bat, you can see the question isn’t ‘which is correct’ or ‘which is more valid’. It’s a question asking the AI to explain the reasons why one might favor calling the whole thing “GNU/Linux”.

And, well, here’s what the AI responded with: 

______

Linux, the open-source operating system that powers a significant portion of the world’s computing infrastructure, is often referred to simply as “Linux.” However, there is a growing movement within the open-source community to refer to the system as “GNU/Linux,” in recognition of the crucial role played by the GNU project in the development of the operating system. In this essay, we will explore the merits of calling Linux “GNU/Linux” instead of just calling it “Linux.”

First and foremost, calling Linux “GNU/Linux” acknowledges the contributions of the GNU project to the development of the operating system. The GNU project, which was founded in 1983 by Richard Stallman, set out to create a complete free and open-source software operating system. While the GNU project made significant progress towards this goal, it was not until the Linux kernel was developed in 1991 by Linus Torvalds that a complete operating system was created. However, the Linux kernel alone is not enough to create a functional operating system. It was the combination of the Linux kernel and the GNU system tools and libraries that created the operating system we know as Linux today. By calling it “GNU/Linux,” we recognize the contributions of the GNU project to the development of the operating system.

Secondly, calling Linux “GNU/Linux” highlights the importance of free and open-source software in the development of the operating system. The GNU project was founded on the principle of creating a completely free and open-source software operating system. The Linux kernel is also released under an open-source license, which allows anyone to view, modify and distribute the code. By calling it “GNU/Linux,” we emphasize the importance of free and open-source software in the development of the operating system.

Thirdly, calling Linux “GNU/Linux” helps to distinguish it from other operating systems that use the Linux kernel but are not part of the GNU project. For example, Android, which is widely used on mobile devices, uses the Linux kernel but is not part of the GNU project. By calling it “GNU/Linux,” we can differentiate between the Linux-based operating systems that are part of the GNU project and those that are not.

Fourthly, calling Linux “GNU/Linux” encourages the use of free and open-source software in general. The GNU project and the Linux kernel are both released under open-source licenses, which means that anyone can view, modify and distribute the code. By calling it “GNU/Linux,” we draw attention to the importance of free and open-source software in the development of the operating system and encourage the use of open-source software more broadly.

Finally, calling Linux “GNU/Linux” helps to promote awareness of the history and development of the operating system. The development of Linux and the GNU project is a fascinating story that spans several decades and involves the contributions of thousands of people. By calling it “GNU/Linux,” we acknowledge the history and development of the operating system and promote awareness of the role played by the GNU project in its creation.

In conclusion, there are several merits to calling Linux “GNU/Linux” instead of just calling it “Linux.” Doing so acknowledges the contributions of the GNU project to the development of the operating system, highlights the importance of free and open-source software, distinguishes it from other Linux-based operating systems, encourages the use of free and open-source software more broadly, and promotes awareness of the history and development of the operating system. While it may seem like a minor change, calling Linux “GNU/Linux” can have a significant impact in promoting the values of free and open-source software and recognizing the contributions of the many individuals and organizations that have helped to create the operating system we know and use today.

______

As you can see, the AI answered the question quite well. It does use some loaded language, like “a growing movement”, that’s not supported by any evidence that I’m aware of – it may be growing or it may not be. Otherwise, it does fairly well at explaining the merits of calling it “GNU/Linux” well enough.

If that persuades you to do so, so be it. If it changes nothing, so be it. You can call it just plain Linux if you want – and I do. I do… This brings us to the second segment of this article!

“Linux” or “GNU/Linux” My Personal Views:

From a personal point of view, and being the author of this site, I simply refer to it as “Linux”. It is not that I do not respect or know about the GNU aspect, it’s that I don’t think I need to type it out repeatedly.

Let’s say you were an avid member of a collectible car forum. Let’s also say that, generally speaking, the forum talks about just one make and model car. For the sake of argument, let’s also just say that the car in question is a Volvo 245.

Still with me?

That’s just like when speaking about the 245 you wouldn’t need to keep typing Volvo. You could even use slang words – such as lovingly calling your 245 a ‘Brick’. But, the main point is that you’d not need to keep calling it a Volvo 245 – because everyone expected to read what you wrote is expected to know that you’re talking about a Volvo.

That’s probably a poor analogy, as GNU isn’t the maker of Linux, but you hopefully get the idea – the idea being that specificity is not required when speaking to your peers about a subject with which those peers are already familiar. If I’m speaking to mathematicians, I don’t have to explain Euler’s number, I simply need to refer to it and they’ll understand what I mean.

So, when a new person reads “Linux”, they’re not expected to know that it’s Linux with GNU components – they’re expected to learn that in context. Anyone advanced in the subject is likely to already be aware of the GNU additions and won’t need to be told over and over again.

I know and very much appreciate the contributions made by GNU. I am not lessening their contributions. Nor am I not diminishing their contributions. I just expect you to already know about their contributions or to learn that along the way. I don’t think that’s too much to expect from my readers.

By the way, there are at least a few distros without GNU. A fairly new one would be Chimera Linux – from some searching, whose tools appear to be based on BSD. There’s also HURD, which is an operating system from the GNU folks that contains no Linux. Given their rarity, I’d probably mention them specifically, pointing out that they stray from the norm.

And that’s what it is – it’s the ‘norm’. It’s normal (for me) to just call it Linux. So, that’s what I do. I know there’s a lot of GNU in there. I use GNU tools quite regularly, and I’m grateful for them. When I omit the “GNU”, it’s not intended as a slight. If I omit the “GNU” it doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s in my operating system – it means I don’t need to specify.

So, what do I do when I encounter a ‘militant GNU/Linux verbiage user’ in the wild? I let them say their piece. I consider them a bit pedantic, but they’re correct in calling it “GNU/Linux”. That’s (generally) what is being discussed and GNU has a huge role in this while Linux is ‘merely’ the kernel.

What do you do?

Closure:

This seemed like a fun subject to cover. I knew I’d eventually remark on the “Linux” or “GNU/Linux” debate and this seemed like a fun way to do so. It’s something most folks can offer an opinion on. I don’t let it ruffle my feathers, but I’m very unlikely to change my ways. Odds are really good that I’ll keep using “Linux” and I’ll be specific when I mean just the kernel. So, there’s that, which is nice.

This might be the fourth article in a row that doesn’t require an open terminal. Imagine that… I wouldn’t expect the lull to last all that long. This was meant to be a quick and easy article but has taken me about twice the amount of time I normally allot for article writing.

Thanks for reading! If you want to help, or if the site has helped you, you can donate, register to help, write an article, or buy inexpensive hosting to start your site. If you scroll down, you can sign up for the newsletter, vote for the article, and comment.

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