Linux is a kernel, Now STFU
Submitted by srlinuxx on Fri, 11/21/2008 - 13:22.
Ok. How many times did it happen to you that whenever you say “Linux” referring to Linux Distro or Linux as an OS in general, some righteous-grammar nazi pops out of nowhere only to correct you by pointing out the obvious and the annoying fact that “Linux is actually a kernel”; no really your family will die and rot in hell if you don’t take the effort and specifically mention linux as a kernel.
So we can’t use one word to describe two things? It’s not like we are using the word “Intelligent” to describe both “Obama” and “Bush” - that would be totally wrong! Is using the word Linux in a loose reference to describe “Linux Kernel based OS”, so out of place?
If we can’t use one word to describe two things, then we shouldn’t use “kernel” to describe “Linux Kernel”; when clearly “corn kernel” came before Linux kernel and we shouldn’t use the word “kernel” to describe two things.
Let’s see what the reference guides have to say about the word “Linux”:
RE: Linux is a kernel, Now STFU
blog.ibeentoubuntu.com: Yes, I've called people out on that, and no, I'm not an RMS follower (though I think he's pretty cool).
Recently on Slashdot, there was an article about Linux driver developers. That means kernel developers. People came out of the woodwork talking about printers and scanners. Printers aren't handled by kernel drivers -- that's CUPS. Scanners are covered by SANE. The Linux kernel has nothing to do with these drivers. I tried to point this out and received a bashing about how it doesn't matter ... from these idiots who, honestly, sound a lot like you here.
Rest here
Many drivers are in apps in Linux ? By open sourced newbies ?
Even KDE uses its own drivers in order to have config independent of Linux kernels. I did a mismatch from kernel, on keyboard drivers in KDE and crashed KDE. But fortunately, I sneak from Gnome back into KDE config and reset the option of a keyboard, and recovered KDE boot.
The network operating system uses DHCP, but Dhcpcd had many drivers of all sorts(cable modem, wireless 802.11, DSL, etc.) included.
All these are done by open source community, and any one can change any apps to include drivers. Linux is not controlled and caused many bugs galore problems. Quality control is now hopefully done by hardware design, where USB devices has its own firmware and drivers included. This design streamline is already making netbooks more Linux usable. More will be done to change Linux architecture for universal adaptation on newer simpler computers.
Footnote:
Active USB peripheral devices has to use an embedded cpu to run the device and do data transfer from its own memory thru USB bus. Thus, it has its own firmware and drivers included.
Passive USB devices use too much resources from the cpu and should be avoided. Active devices do parallel processing; passive devices are host cpu controlled and really slows down your computer.