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this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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Linux
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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.
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I would say, that from most important to least important components are:
what do u mean by important? like 'essential to the system', or 'important to consider when choosing a distro', or what?
I mean "something out of ordinary about it affects your experience with this distro the most".
i see
I'm surprised you put shell so high when it tends to be less impactful in my experience. Like I care a lot more if my distro is using GNOME instead of KDE a lot more than if it's using bash instead of zsh. Plus it's easy to install and use a different shell
It is easy to install another shell indeed, but it is quite difficult to configure it. While installation of DE is usually done with just one command. And you can use linux without DE, but not without shell. Many distributions even do not install DE by default at all.
Okay but unless you are spending a lot of time in the command line, one (POSIX compliant) shell is as good as another. Like yes every distro needs a shell, but I don't much care which shell it is.
Wouldn't the c library be more important than the init system?
You are probably right. It is probably even more important than kernel.
Not really.
One thing I don't know: if C is a compiled language already, what exactly does the C library do?
it is a dynamically linked library, meaning its not in the compiled binary, but its assumed to already be on the system. as opposed to a statically linked binary. this lowers the file size of the binaries, because most will use the standard library.
edit: this may not be 100% correct, but its the general idea
Most C binaries usually do not contain everything needed for their execution. It would make them too platform-specific. What most c programs do is that they use standard c library from platform for low-level things and communication with the system like memory allocation or stdin/stdout things, for example.