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by matheusmoreira 241 days ago
Linux does none of those things. That's user space stuff. Linux loads your ELF and jumps to its entry point. That's it.

Linux is so great you're actually free to remake the entire user space in your image if you want. It's the only kernel that lets you do it, all the others force you to go through C library nonsense, including Windows.

The glibc madness you described is just a convention, kept in place by inertia. You absolutely can trash glibc if you want to. I too have a vision for Linux user space and am working towards realizing it. Nothing will happen unless someone puts the work in.

1 comments

Yes that’s all filed under blah blah blah.

Some people use “Linux” to exclusively refer to the Linux kernel. Most people do not.

Linux by default does mean Linux kernel, but in my reply I didn't cared about that either. When all know what is meant, that is fine in my opinion.

I think it is important to have GNU/Linux in mind, because there are OSs that don't use glibc and work totally different, so none of your complaints apply. But yes, most people think of GNU/Linux, when you tell them about Linux.

It is also relevant to consider that there is no OS called GNU/Linux. The OSs are called Debian, Arch, OpenSuSE, Fedora, ... . It is fine for different OS to have differently working runtime linkers and installation methods, but some people act surprised when they find out ignoring that doesn't work.