Most Read This Week In Stem

[close] This group is for everyone who is interested in topics ranging from parenting and gifted education to nuclear energy and amateur science. Share your ideas and let's learn from each other.

[close] Welcome Battle Hamsters to the MeTooSTEM Book Club! This is a group for all those looking for suggested reading from MeTooSTEM on activism, social justice, sexual harassment and self-growth. We do book clubs via video chat often, stay tuned for the next one!

[close] We are a community for unique science communicators and STEAM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Arts, Math) enthusiasts. Our Medium publication is dedicated to sharing stories and articles by SciCommers, and we love to uplift our peers! All academics, academic creators, educators, and students are welcome.> Come chat with us (we read books too). Follow us on Twitter @stemfirstgen, and send us your pitches— we are always open for submissions (and suggestions)! stemfirst.gen@gmail.com

[close] I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.