- cross-posted to:
- linux@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- linux@programming.dev
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I wonder what has the other half of the Linux market. Linux, perhaps?
ChromeOS.
Apparently, desktop Linux use measures 3.08 per cent, lagging about a quarter behind the usage of ChromeOS at 4.15 per cent. The problem with this is that ChromeOS is also a Linux distribution. It’s a strange distro, non-standard in several ways, but current versions are built on the basis of Gentoo Linux, switching from an Ubuntu basis some years earlier.
I’m not sure what’s being implied here, but the quote from the article is true. ChromeOS is FOSS, was based on Ubuntu (a long time ago) and is now based on Gentoo. Early versions of ChromeOS, which were basically just a full-screen browser, didn’t feel very Linuxy. But I think current ChromeOS versions look and feel a lot like using a simplified Linux distro.
I don’t have a strong opinion on whether ChromeOS should be grouped with traditional Linux distros for statistical purposes. But it is notable that Google maintains the two most most popular non-server OSs built on the Linux kernel.
I was wondering if I read it right, dear god, who the hell views this and gives his approval ?
Fair guess but without reading the article I will guess it’s not.
You should read tha article then
TL;DR: ChromeOS is Linux but it’s not Linux but it’s a Linux so count it as a Linux but not Linux. Half.
I guess this is a situation where the proper name of GNU / Linux is useful
As far as I know, ChromeOS is also GNU/Linux (It uses full glibc, includes gnu utils and bash), so not so much.
They mention this in the article.
In fact, they never say it’s not Linux. The summary would be more like: “ChromeOS should be counted among desktop Linux, because it has the same basis as any other GNU/Linux distribution, unlike Android. Here are the dumb reasons I think people would argue against this.”
Or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux.
Is Chimera Linux not Linux?
Such definitionsaree becoming more and more complicated. I think we should standardize a name for the family of systems we use, or it will become uglier and uglier.
Recently, I had to wrote am academic work in the area, and an entire section was dedicated to explaining this controversy and defining what kind of system I was talking about, so that the work is reproducible.
Ever heard of Alpine?
my head hurts
You see sometimes Linux is not Linux and sometimes it is. Naturally, we can’t count non-Linux as Linux but sometimes we can count Linux as non-Linux.
A quick summary of this [frankly, rather crappy] article boils down to “I don’t understand, why people ignore the 4% of ChromeOS usage when talking about the 3% of Linux usage?” written in the most facepalm-worthy way, spamming fallacies like there was no tomorrow:
- “Which is also Linux, but the wrong kind of Linux.” - strawman
- “which means that [desktop Linux]¹ has less than half of the [desktop Linux]² market.” - ambiguity (“1” refers to a subset of “2”)
- “It’s not a typical Linux, because typical Linuxes are tools for nerdy hacker types, and that kind of OS will never, ever go mainstream unless someone forces people to use it” - begging the question + ad hominem
- “So naturally the Forces of FOSS hate it. Of course they do. And how do they express that contempt? By saying it’s not a True Linux.” - repeating the strawman again, for an ad nauseam
Also note that the same type of stupid reasoning from the article would also “prove” that MacOS is a *BSD.
What a weird hill to die on.
But nobody considers MacOS a BSD.
I thought the author’s point was pretty well-made. Some implementations are so far removed from the original’s goals that they no longer count for it even though they’re technically a match.
It’s merely an oddity that ChromeOS is based on Linux; it could be based on anything else and it wouldn’t change anything. It doesn’t work like Linux does and you can’t use it for most of the things that make Linux worth using.
Even Windows (via WSL) is more Linux at this point than ChromeOS is. Let that sink in for a moment and you’ll see why we don’t count ChromeOS.
Except the author is arguing that ChromeOS should count at least in desktop Linux statistics, he is criticizing the FOSS community for not doing so for ideological reasons more than technical ones.
But nobody considers MacOS a BSD.
Yup - and that’s the point of the comparison. They share a lot of important code (mostly in the userland IIRC), and yet people don’t consider MacOS a BSD, since both drifted away so much that lumping them together is simply not useful. And yet it’s what the author is doing with ChromeOS and Linux, that are in the exact same situation. (Another way to say this is how you did it - they don’t work the same and you can’t use one to do the things that makes the other worth using.)
I thought the author’s point was pretty well-made.
The author’s point boils down to “actually you got 7% Linux, not 3%”. I don’t think that it was well-made; it relies on disregarding why people don’t call ChromeOS “Linux”.
MacOS is not a BSD specifically because its kernel is not BSD (although it has some bits of it), so the comparison isn’t really sound. What makes it “a BSD” (or Linux) shouldn’t be the graphical environment.
Immutable distros are making accepted “Linux distributions” even more like ChromeOS, while ChromeOS has gotten more like those immutable distros.
Sorry beforehand for the wall of text.
Even if FreeBSD and MacOS shared the exact same kernel, I don’t think that people would say that MacOS is a *BSD - due to what lemmyvore said, it does not work like a *BSD. The code itself doesn’t matter that much, and this is not just about ideology (more on that later); it’s about how the software interacts with the user, the machine, and the rest of the world.
I’ll highlight this through a thought experiment. Imagine an OS called DuckOS.
Let’s say that you refactored its source code, compiled the result, and released the refactored version as NaN-OS. No DuckOS line of code was left untouched; you refactored everything. But both DuckOS and NaN-OS still behave exactly the same, they run in the same machines, you even reimplemented DuckOS’s bugs and quirks.
For all intents and purposes, NaN-OS is still DuckOS. It quacks like DuckOS, walks like DuckOS, then it’s still DuckOS.
Now let’s look at ChromeOS vs. what people usually call Linux (the 3%):
- ChromeOS: thin client OS with mostly web-based interface, running software from someone else’s computer (“the cloud”). Your data is also in someone else’s computer. You can access both from other ChromeOS devices. You aren’t really expected to mess with the system itself. Mostly intended for secondary devices, that become fancy bricks without internet.
- Linux (the 3%): new software is installed in the system itself, as usual. Your data is by default stored locally; you could store it in someone else’s computer like the above, but that would be an atypical. Intended for generic purpose machines, from supercomputers to toasters. Customisability and adaptability are some of its appeals.
Sure, ChromeOS runs the Linux kernel… and then what? It doesn’t behave like that collective mess of Linux distros.
Now, regarding ideology. In another comment, you mentioned that the author criticises the FOSS community for not calling ChromeOS “Linux” for ideological reasons. I do agree that ideology plays a role here, but it’s neither a factor that should be brushed off, nor the sole factor. When the FOSS community says “use Leenooks!”, they aren’t saying “use the kernel” - you can bet that most would be happy campers if you used hurd instead. They’re instead saying “use that bag of customisable and adaptable OSes, built upon open source in letter and in spirit”. It’s hard to claim that ChromeOS is part of that bag, even if it happens to use the Linux kernel.
(And for the sake of statistics it’s simply easier to list them separately, as Statcounter and others do.)
Ah, on immutable distros: depending on how things roll with them, might as well argue that they’re a third, different thing. I’m not knowledgeable enough on them to say anything.
This reads like a high school essay made in the absolute last minute before it was due and the kid couldn’t come up with anything worthwhile to write about.
Or an essay written by ChatGPT without the student checking to make sure it made sense before turning it in
I’m to old to have thought of submitting an ai essay in school lol
It’s the year of Linux on the Linux Desktop.
If Linux only makes up half the Linux market, what the heck makes up the other half? 🤔
Linux 2
We’ve had one Linux, yes… what about Second Linux?
ChromeOS, which has another 4%. Which is also Linux but the “wrong” kind. It was the author’s tongue-in-cheek way of highlighting the fact that ChromeOS is so different for the regular Linux user that not being counted as Linux actually makes sense.
They probably meant that GNU holds half of the Linux desktop usage, and Chrome OS the other
The difference is that nobody in the FOSS world would celebrate if Chrome OS had 50+% market share. That would be a terrible time for FOSS.
But a good news for software compatibility on GNU/Linux, right?
deleted by creator
Not enough content if it just said “ChromeOS should count as desktop Linux too” and said the basic reason why, “all the GNU bits are still there.“
I don’t think they’re necessarily wrong about why some people would argue against it, but at least they could allow that discussion to take place.
And the title is awful.
The what now?
Android is linux with the goodness ripped out and replaced with a bag of shit.
As does the author’s head.
For some reason it infuriates me that they compare ChromeOS to “other Linuxes” as a plural when they could’ve just said Linux distributions
Linuxi?
Lini?
The plural of Linux is Linus.
