Is MS “adopting” Linux for Win 10??

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I DM’d Woody about this and he suggested I post the following item here. The following is a direct copy/paste from my initial message to him:

Check out the following link I just stumbled across, courtesy of the “TechNet Flash” newsletter that MS sends out on a weekly or bi weekly basis:https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/shipping-a-linux-kernel-with-windows/

From the newsletter’s teaser: “Upcoming releases of Windows 10 will include an in-house, custom-built Linux kernel. Find out why and get the details.”

From reading the post, sounds like they may be trying to make it easier to run Linux-based software from within Windows, without having to use a VM setup.

End of direct quote from my DM to Woody.

Although I don’t run Linux, I thought that perhaps the folks here in the “Linux for Windows wonks” forum that are really into Linux (Linux forum MVPs?) may be able to shed some more light on MS’s concept.

R/

Bob99

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I note that both Windows and ChromeOS are getting full-fledged Linux environments.

Chris Hoffman has a great article in How-To Geek:

The year of Linux on the desktop is finally here! Windows 10 is getting a Linux kernel, and all new Chromebooks will run Linux applications. Most desktops purchased in the future will include a Linux kernel and run Linux software.

What I find amazing – confusing – worrisome is that the Linux kernel will be updated via Windows Update.

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woody wrote:

What I find amazing – confusing – worrisome is that the Linux kernel will be updated via Windows Update.

Not my exact choice of words, but close enough.

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woody wrote:

What I find amazing – confusing – worrisome is that the Linux kernel will be updated via Windows Update.

It’s normal for the distro maintainer to distribute the kernel, along with everything else in the distro’s repo.  Where else would the users of such a thing get it if not from Microsoft?

When it’s time for a kernel update, I get it from Ubuntu’s servers, since Neon is a derivative of Ubuntu.  Same’s true of Mint.  Both Mint and Neon have their own repos for the files that differ from Ubuntu, but the Ubuntu repos are still in the mix for all of the other files, including the kernel.  The Mint or Neon devs could distribute their own kernels, but there’s no reason to if they haven’t modified the files in question.  They both use the standard Ubuntu kernels, which are modified compared to the mainline kernel as provided by the kernel team.

Since Microsoft will be tweaking the kernel in their own product, there’s no one else that would be distributing that kernel other than Microsoft, and since it is meant to run within the context of Windows 10, MS Update is a perfectly natural choice.  There’s nothing I can see that’s sinister or weird about that.  It’s Linux for Windows, so of course it will come from where Windows things come from.

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It’s normal for the distro maintainer to distribute the kernel, along with everything else in the distro’s repo. Where else would the users of such a thing get it if not from Microsoft?

  Absolutely and certainly not from WU, that’s for sure! I value and TRUST the work that goes into maintaining linux kernels/updates per distro.

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But we’re talking about people already running Windows 10 that would be able to use this new Linux kernel, so even without it, they’ve already given up the keys to the kingdom.  They’re already running an entire OS written my Microsoft and delivered by Windows update, so what difference does it make to have WSL updates delivered that way also? The idea that the kernel is being modified by MS to run better as WSL isn’t a flaw for the people who would be using it… it’s definitely a feature, since it will make the Linux subsystem work better on Windows, which is the only reason for the MS kernel mods to exist in the first place.

People who want to escape Windows by moving to Linux actually have to move to Linux and stop using Windows, not use Linux from within Windows.  Those people who wish to be free of MS are clearly not the target of WSL, since no matter how much of Linux’s abilities they add to Windows, the main benefit is still not there, and that’s freedom from MS, WaaS, forced updates, forced telemetry… the whole thing.  Still, it’s kinda neat that people still in MS prison themselves can write software for those of us who aren’t!

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Maybe this is a blessing in disguise? Because if enough people get some kind of Linux from MS, that will give them a chance to try out Linux enough so, once they have learned the basic moves, some of them may go on and install a regular Linux distro on their PCs in dual boot with Windows. Some might even install it as the only OS in some machine they have in the attic gathering dust, or even in a new one bought expressly to be used as a Linux computer.

And if those “some of them of some of them” added up to, let’s say, close to 10% of all regular Windows users, then, when their numbers are put together with the numbers of pre-existing Linux users, the result could be a decently large user base that should give a serious boost to the even further adoption of Linux. What one might call  “a virtuous circle”, or “a benign  form of positive feedback.” And also the kind of opening that the more user-friendly Linux projects in particular, at least here in the USA, could really use…

…or maybe not. We’ll just have to wait and see.

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Windows is trying to keep a flood of their users from doing a one-way migration from Windows to Linux, so they are putting a Linux kernel inside of Windows. But the primary OS will be Windows, not Linux.

For those who really want to abandon Windows for Linux, this won’t stop the migration. But for those who want to try out Linux without actually leaving Windows, a lot of those people will go to the Linux kernel in Windows.

There’s another thing here: Microsoft wants to get in on the Linux game. This will give them some involvement, some participation. I just hope they don’t figure out a way to get some control, because I fear that is their real goal.

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MrJimPhelps: ”  I just hope they don’t figure out a way to get some control, because I fear that is their real goal. ”

That is probably right. Although, as I see it, the issue is not so much about  “figuring a way to” (they might have people who already has some promising ideas about that), but actually “managing to”.

Herding cats, anyone? Also: “divide and conquer” works on the assumption that there is something to be divided.

But MS might just manage to pull it off. Because if someone can, it is them.

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@MrJimPhelps: check out this YouTube video Microsoft is buying control of Linux

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That’s a real but separate issue, one that’s unrelated to Microsoft using a Linux kernel in its WSL.  It’s concerning, but MS is only one of a bunch of other platinum members, and the corporate influence thing has been around a lot longer than the time that MS has allegedly loved Linux.  It’s often cited as a possible reason why Firefox was never willing to compete with Google Chrome the way they were with MSIE… for a long time, Firefox was supposedly dependent on the revenue from Google for putting Google in as the default search.  I have no idea if it’s true, but if so, it’s one of many such examples.  MS has to get in line behind a lot of other corporations that are also buying interest!

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@Ascaris: it might be a separate issue, but I was just replying to a comment by @MrJimPhelps about MS trying to get control.

As for MS having to get in line behind other influencers, that is true insofar as they would all pay similar amounts to the Linux Foundation. From what I understand MS’s $500k contribution is bigger than others, which, if true, allows MS to jump the queue. That makes sense in the context of another, separate but relevant issue: M’s take-over of Github, a platform for open source apps.

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Klaas Vaak wrote:

@ascaris: it might be a separate issue, but I was just replying to a comment by @mrjimphelps about MS trying to get control.

Ah, yes, I see that now.

According to the link you provided, Platinum membership requires a $500k donation, so all of the other Platinum members must have made them too.  There are fifteen of those.

MS clearly is trying to get some influence in the Linux world, but for what purpose is anyone’s guess.  The generalized alarm people have for the triple-E company getting into Linux is justified given Microsoft’s past, but if MS really saw Linux as a competitor that needed to be extinguished, I can’t see how they’d be wrecking Windows so effectively themselves.  Linux seems to be gathering momentum on the desktop now, and it’s Microsoft that’s behind it!

For decades, Linux has failed to make any inroads into the desktop world owned by Microsoft.  If they wanted to keep that monopoly, it would make sense for them to keep doing what they were doing.  It was working!  The so-called “year of the Linux desktop” never arrived.

Linux was never able to capture the desktop away from MS, but if MS abandons the desktop, Linux is the most likely to pick up the slack.  And with Windows development taking ~35% of Microsoft’s resources while providing (if the figure I saw was correct) only ~10% of the profit (and falling, as the PC market in general falls, not counting revenue enhancement from monetization), it’s easy to see how a “cloud” guy like Satya Nadella could conclude that Windows as we’ve known it is not a good use for that third of the company’s resources.

MS has had an interest in killing off Linux since the start, but they never did any of this stuff before recently. Now that MS is doing more damage to the Windows franchise than all of the Linux evangelists ever could, it may be that they may be seeking to use it as a life raft for all of the Windows customers who will need a place to go when they scuttle Windows as we’ve known it, and they need some influence to make sure that GPL violations (the bit about Linux that Ballmer once called a “cancer”) don’t come bite them on the butt.  Having one-fifteenth of the Platinum membership of the Linux foundation isn’t enough to steer it into the ground, but it might be enough to keep the Linux foundation from coming after MS for any of the minor conflicts that may arise as a result of using Linux in a closed-source product, should they ever choose that route.

 

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@Ascaris: an interesting view looking at MS’s antics from a positive angle.

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? says:

reminds me of watching a channel9 video featuring Mark Russinovich slamming theblack rubber tip of a pointer right smack in the middle of ring0…

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? says:

maybe the real reason Microsoft is looking to awaken from the layer cake nightmare of their kernel model can be found hidden some where in the comparison:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_ring

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Windows_NT

i do so appreciate all the legions of linux people constantly working to patch the holes as they appear…

 

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Last I saw, Linux annual revenue was ~$35B, and on an upward trend. That’s not a bad pie to want a piece of, so I expect MS are ramping up their learning efforts.

MS also has to be worried about anti-trust on the PC end. With Mac the only credible competitor, they still only have 10% of the market v MS’s 87%. If Linux was going to get anywhere on PCs, it would have done so in 27 years. So MS are in the place where if anything happens to Mac, they’re the only game in town.

This could be a rerun of the late 90s when MS rescued Apple from probable closure, so they could claim to have a competitor. If they can ship Linux inside Windows, maybe that’ll cover their vulnerability if Mac declines.

Then there’s the obvious movement of most consumer activity away from the desktop to the cloud, which MS have acknowledged by reducing the importance of Windows to their revenues this decade. With growing irrelevance of PC OS for consumers next decade, MS may be getting out of a PC-specific OS and moving towards a cloud OS which will work on most devices.

PCs would remain as a much smaller enthusiast market, like Mac and game consoles are now, and MS might welcome Linux catering to this while they focus on the big markets.

Hmm, lots of possibilities for upside for MS, can’t see much of a downside.

Lugh.
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I assume $35B is $35 Billion. Is that US or global? And where are these monies coming from? I’ve used Linux occasionally but I’m not familiar with its finances.

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access-mdb wrote:

I assume $35B is $35 Billion. Is that US or global? And where are these monies coming from?

Yes, billion; global.

Since the early 90s start, Linux has been marketed to business, first by SUSE, then by Red Hat & Canonical—these days all the big boys are players, eg Google, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Novell, Dell, Samsung. My $35Bn is maybe a decade old, I see Red Hat had revenues of $3.4Bn last year. I can’t find a global figure quickly, but it’s gotta be way higher than my decade-old sum, I would guess over $100Bn.

Whatever it is, an attractive target to try and get a bigger slice of.

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Bob99 wrote:

Is MS “adopting” Linux for Win 10??

Microsoft’s intention is to kill usage of Linux on desktops (no VM, no DualBoot…)

Bad News! Windows 10 Will Soon Have a Real Linux Kernel

Microsoft is infamous for its Embrace, Extend, Extinguish policy. It has started ‘loving’ open source and Linux in the last few years but before that Linux was cancer.

The so-called ‘love for Linux’ seems more like ‘lust for Linux’ to me. The Linux community is behaving like a teen-aged girl madly in love with a brute. Who benefits from this Microsoft-Linux relationship? Clearly, Microsoft has more to gain here. The WSL has the capacity of shrinking (desktop) Linux to a mere desktop app in this partnership…

..In the coming years, a significant population of future generation of programmers won’t even bother to try Linux desktop because they’ll get everything right in their systems that comes pre-installed with Windows…

https://itsfoss.com/windows-linux-kernel-wsl-2

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Alex5723 wrote:

The Linux community is behaving like a teen-aged girl madly in love with a brute.

Most of the reaction I’ve seen has been more of sounding the alarm bells  than than a lovestruck teen.  If I thought Microsoft was particularly interested in remaining in the desktop PC market, I might be a little more alarmed, but nothing about Microsoft’s behavior of the last four years screams “I want to keep these Windows users long term!”

MS is offloading the hard part of its Edge browser development to the open-source community (and Google in particular), and they may be exploring the possibility of trying that with Windows as well.  I doubt their minds are made up on the matter yet.

Who benefits from this Microsoft-Linux relationship? Clearly, Microsoft has more to gain here.

Of course… if not, they wouldn’t be doing it.  It doesn’t mean they’re trying to cause harm to anyone else, though, or that if they try it, they will succeed.

Windows was once the core of the MS empire.  Now it clearly isn’t.  MS is all about the cloud these days, and if you look at their behavior in destroying what was once their flagship product, MS seems to dislike Windows now about as much as Linux fans do.  They’ve crossed all the lines that “Micro$oft” of the Gates and Ballmer eras never dared approach for fear of harming the Windows franchise.

MS could have forced Vista on an unwilling public in all the ways it currently forces 10 on them now, but it didn’t do it.  They understood, I am certain, that doing that would make them more money in the short term, but it would harm the entire Windows platform long term.  Now they’re doing everything they can to monetize Windows short-term, and nearly all of it is poison for Windows beyond a couple of years.  They know what happens when you bring a 90% market share monopoly to bear against their own customers– Internet Explorer is what happens, and they’ve chosen that path for Windows anyway, unwaveringly, for four years.

The WSL has the capacity of shrinking (desktop) Linux to a mere desktop app in this partnership…

The biggest reason to use Linux is to be free of Microsoft and Windows 10.  Linux running under Windows 10 is still Microsoft and it’s still Windows 10.  I didn’t switch to Linux for all of the kernel goodness– I did it because I have a strong dislike for Windows 10 and I refuse to use it.  When Ernie Ball (guitar string maker) switched to Linux, it wasn’t because Linux had any software that Windows didn’t… it was because Microsoft was behaving abusively towards them, as is their norm, and they were tired of it.

People who want to get free of Microsoft won’t have any interest in running Linux under a Windows 10 hypervisor.  It’s more aimed at developers who want to use Linux for software development but who are required by their employers to use Windows, I think.  That doesn’t harm Linux in any way… after all, free, open-source software is free for anyone to use for any purpose, including Microsoft using it within Windows.  As long as they license any derivative or downstream products under the GPL, meaning that they must make the source code for all modifications they make to the kernel available to all, they can do as they wish.  It doesn’t mean that the kernel team is going to accept any submissions from Microsoft!  MS will be obligated to make all changes they make to the Linux kernel available under the GPL, but that does not at all that Torvalds, et al, will accept any such patches into the kernel, or that MS will attempt to get them checked in upstream of their own kernel branch.

I’m not worried at this point.  I don’t think this particular thing will harm or benefit Linux directly, but it does suggest to the greater computing world that Linux is on the upswing, and that could get more devs interested in developing software for it.

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Couple of concerns here:
Surely linux will eventually be poluted with MS vectors for miscreant exploitation.
‘Microsoft loves Linux’ was this the overall gameplan of MS?
If Microsoft loves linux so much..allow some closed source for WINE development!
I’m now beginning to see why Woody recommends using a Chromebook albeit a closed source ‘cousin’ of linux on the PC.

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Microfix wrote:

Surely linux will eventually be poluted with MS vectors for miscreant exploitation.

There’s no reason to believe that any MS code will ever make it into Linux based on this turn of events.  This is about Microsoft using the Linux kernel in their own OS… well, it’s open source, so they’re free to do that.  The whole point of free/libre software is that, as Richard Stallman put it, you don’t have to get anyone’s permission to use it for whatever purpose you wish, so long as any derivative works are licensed under the GPL.  That means Microsoft doesn’t have to get anyone’s permission before using the Linux kernel… that would not be free/libre software if it did.

Nothing about Microsoft’s decision to use the Linux kernel implies anything about the gatekeepers in Linux suddenly forgetting what Microsoft is all about and blindly accepting MS code contributions.  It’s open source, so anyone is free to download the source code, compile it, modify it, or whatever the wish, but that doesn’t mean anyone can submit code and automatically have it accepted, like some sort of a software wiki!  Each code submission is scrutinized to make sure it meets the standards of the project managers.  For the Linux kernel, that final arbiter of code worthiness is Linus Torvalds himself, same guy that would have been blocking the way if MS had tried to sabotage Linux under Ballmer or Gates.

The two things, using the Linux kernel and contributing patches upstream for its development, are completely separate and distinct things.  If the Linux devs like what they see in some of the changes MS makes to their own MS branch of the kernel, they’re free to unabashedly snag that code even if MS has not submitted it to them and use it in the upstream kernel… that’s how the GPL is supposed to work.  If the kernel devs don’t like or trust it, they won’t make use of the MS code, or any other code submissions they get from various self-serving corporate interests.  MS could have been contributing patches since Linux first arrived, yet it endures still.  Microsoft deciding that using their own kernel isn’t good enough alone isn’t any reason for alarm!

MS initially tried a reverse-WINE approach, using a compatibility layer to translate POSIX calls to Windows API calls, but the Windows kernel was incapable of doing some things that were possible and expected in Linux, like deleting or modifying files that had open handles.  In Linux, you can replace in-use executable files with a new version without the system telling you NO because the file’s busy or bluescreening/kernel panicking if you remove the file handle forcibly and do it anyway, and that made the MS Linux-to-Windows compatibility layer unworkable for certain things, with no solution available unless the Windows kernel was extended to have the same functionality as the Linux kernel.

Rather than attempt that risky path for the subset of Windows users that would actually want to use Linux under Windows 10, MS took the path of least resistance and decided to run a Linux kernel under a hypervisor operating under Windows 10, which (depending on how it is implemented) looks like little more than running Linux in a VirtualBox VM in “seamless” mode, suitably tweaked for performance.  Running Linux in a VM poses no threat to Linux as a whole, even if that Linux kernel has been modified by MS.  Again, they’re free to do that with free/libre software, so long as they make the content of those patches available under the GPL.  Making the source for the MS patches available to everyone is a long, long way from submitting them upstream to the kernel devs and having them check the code in!

MS putting all of this effort into Linux results in yet another article in the tech press that tells the world that Linux is on the rise, right at the moment that the most popular version of Windows is being readied for EOL, and with Windows 10 continuing to be a dumpster fire of an OS that people only use if they’re forced.  Chromebooks getting Linux, a “real computer” OS with offline functionality for the first time… Windows 10 getting Linux… Windows games getting Linux compatibility… these are the headlines seen in the tech press, undoubtedly read by people who make decisions related to tech, and that’s not a bad thing.

We need to get past the chicken or the egg thing… software devs don’t want to write for Linux if there’s no market, and people (including business of all sizes) don’t want to move to Linux if the software they want to use isn’t there.  If it has any effect at all, this drumbeat of Linux-positive headlines in the tech press would tend to make software developers and users dissatisfied with Windows consider Linux less of a gamble than in years past, if heavy-hitters like Google, Microsoft, and Valve/Steam are embracing it.  (Google has been for years with ChromeOS, which is actually considered a Linux distro in and of itself, unlike Android, but I’d bet that few ChromeOS users know that).

It’s wise to be suspicious of every move made by MS.  They’ve earned that many times over, certainly.  There’s just not a whole lot of cause for concern based on the “Windows 10 is getting a Linux kernel” thing.  That’s harmless, and has no bearing at all on whether MS code makes it into Linux.

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Since when is Android not a Linux distribution? Last time I checked it ticked all the boxes. Sure, it’s one that most of the time comes with closed-source components and clunky to do anything with, but still it’s an operating system running on the Linux kernel.

Also separating Windows into the application / UI layer and the kernel, and then replacing the kernel, would make a lot of sense for Microsoft. And since Server Core exists already as the reverse of that…

After all, commercial applications on Linux are allowed. Windows user interface, APIs and libraries on top of a Linux kernel maybe…? Can’t be derivative works if they’re ports from something that used to run on the Windows kernel and can still also run on top of Server Core.

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There’s no official definition of “distro,” but Android has never been considered one in any reference I’ve seen.  My router runs a Linux kernel too, and the router software on top of that functions as an operating system (I can even ssh into its command line).  It’s not considered a distro, though.

People are getting all upset about Microsoft’s recent interest in Linux, and they’re going back to Microsoft’s well-known “embrace, extend, extinguish” strategy, without any clear illustration of how MS would ever get from “extend” to “extinguish” in an open-source project.  They can certainly embrace it (which they have), and they can try to extend it.  If the kernel people allow MS to check in some code, it will be because that code is beneficial, and MS may be the author, but that code will be governed by the GPL, so how exactly does MS pull off the “extinguish” bit?

Maybe the idea is that they will extend their own branch of the Linux kernel for use in WSL, which they can do without the go-ahead of the upstream kernel folks, but then programs developed using those extensions won’t be Linux programs, since the “real” Linux kernel doesn’t have those extensions.  Those WSL programs would just be another flavor of Windows 10 program, because MS clearly needs another one, just as the news of the decline of UWP is all over the place.

If MS added their extensions to the Linux kernel, they would be obligated to make the code for those extensions available under the GPL, even if the kernel guys upstream had no interest in using that code.  All of their updates, also, would have to be GPL’d.  It would be impossible for MS to get everyone dependent on the new extensions, then take them away and force them into Windows 10.  The best they could do would be to stop issuing binaries of the runtime outside of Windows 10… but as long as they’re modifying the GPL’d Linux kernel, they’re going to have to make the code of their changes available, and that makes it impossible to “extinguish” it.

The only way I can imagine MS trying to get this to happen would be if that framework was not actually built into the MS modified Linux kernel, but that it was another layer on top of it, without using any GPL code within itself.  MS could make that a standard part of WSL, and then have a binary build of it (as a runtime for end users and a SDK for devs) available for real Linux distros.  If they could get people dependent on that framework, they could then pull the plug on it for real Linux, but leave it active within Windows 10, thus forcing people to use Windows 10 Linux rather than the real thing.

They could do that, but with Linux only having 2% of the desktop market share and with MS already set to get 90% of the desktop market dependent on Windows 10, what would be the point? For the whole time they’re building up the “extend” part of the deal, they’re growing the Linux market, giving the computing public the idea that there IS an alternative to Microsoft and Windows– and one that is MS-approved, none less.

MS has spent years trying to FUD Linux and to make businesses think it’s too difficult and weird for any real desktop use, and a lot of them have bought into it.  Trying to use EEE against Linux requires extending it enough to make the Microsoft additions indispensable, and that would mean selling the MS commitment to Linux enough to make Linux devs believe it, so that the entire Linux software library ends up using the MS framework (and that in itself seems very unlikely).  If the Linux devs don’t believe the MS commitment to Linux is in good faith, they’ll develop without the MS framework, making them immune to the attempts to extinguish it.

If the goal is to eliminate Linux on the desktop, the last thing MS would want to do is give Linux their stamp of approval.  For all of those “Microsoft or nothing” shops out there, having MS endorse Linux is going to be a green light for Linux that the Linux world alone has not been able to achieve in 20 years.  This could give Linux a tremendous boost among those businesses who believe that enterprise software means Microsoft, and when you consider that the eventual “extinguish” bit would only affect that subset of Linux software that ends up depending on Microsoft extensions, it’s not unreasonable to conclude that the boost they gave Linux during the embrace and extend phases will still outweigh the damage done during the extinguish phase.

A more likely hypothesis, I think, might be that MS is trying to curry some favor within the Linux community (and with the Linux foundation in particular) so that if they ever do decide to make Windows run on a Linux kernel, for example, any possible minor GNU violations may be swept under the rug in order to keep Microsoft’s “benevolence” flowing.

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Bluetrix

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I think the definition I was referring to when I said Android wasn’t considered a distro was that what we usually call “Linux” is what Richard Stallman really wants us to call “GNU/Linux,” to give proper recognition to the GNU programs that are just as important as the kernel in forming a real operating system.

While Android uses the Linux kernel (modified by Google, but that’s not unusual in the Linux world), it doesn’t use most of the GNU bits (and maybe none, for all I know).  Without them, Android isn’t GNU/Linux, which is usually what people mean when they say that something is “Linux,” and by extension, a Linux distro.

 

 

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Haven’t we seen this before in Star Trek where the Borg attempt to conquer by subsuming all from within?

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CADesertRat

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Many in the Linux community seem to be unaware that the interest of all the big corporate players in Linux has nothing to do with the desktop, and everything to do with enterprise.

Linux got ~2% of the desktop market, but it got ~60% of the server market. Big business is where the Linux action is, it’s not some romantic David to others’ Goliaths.

Lugh.
~
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Lugh wrote:

Linux got ~2% of the desktop market, but it got ~60% of the server market.

“Linux” (Linux, Unix, FreeBSD…) got 90% OS share on all devices. Windows has <10%.

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Alex5723 wrote:

Lugh wrote:

Linux got ~2% of the desktop market, but it got ~60% of the server market.

“Linux” (Linux, Unix, FreeBSD…) got 90% OS share on all devices. Windows has <10%.

Well er… that would then require a definition for “all devices”.

First, BSD… they most definitely aren’t “Linux”. BSD may mean sort of “Unix” but not the trademark in the general case.

Then, trademarked Unix is a bit weird. Some of those are Linux, some of those are BSD, and some are neither. (Mac is mostly just Apple, and the rest of it Unix and BSD)

Android is a Linux distribution though, by the definition of “operating system running on the Linux kernel”.

A whole lot of what I’d count into “all devices” still run something completely different, like VxWorks or QNX or…

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Lugh

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As a Linux newbie I installed Linux next to Win 8.1 on my 5-year old laptop in order to get away from Windows, and I can say it was heaven to break free from the MS update mess and Win 10 enforcement.

3 weeks ago I bought a new laptop with Win 10 pre-installed. The 1st thing I did was install Linux and allow it to entirely wipe Windows off. I struggled a bit with an issue that, unbeknown to me at 1st, was caused by a graphical driver. I got it fixed and I have continued to enjoy freedom ever since.

Is Linux perfect? No, it certainly is not, but then, very few things, if any, are. I have found very acceptable replacements for apps that did not have a Linux versions, and where I can quite happily live with the workarounds I have to use.

see #1596403 as are other major donors like VMWare, Futitsu, Samsung, …..

Edit: Please do not duplicate Links.

1x Linux Mint 19.1 | 1x Linux antiX

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OscarCP

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