GNU and Linux: Different or the same? Post: 37444

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Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers GNU and Linux: Different or the same? Post 37444 by norsk hedensk on Wednesday 18th of June 2003 10:18:50 PM

06-18-2003

Registered User

GNU is a recursive acronym for Gnu's NOT Unix. this was common hacker naming proceedure in the AI labs back in the 70s. if you really want to get technical on the explanation, you could subscribe to Stallman's naming conventions for this whole GNU (/) Linux thing..... (gasps for air...) GNU is actually the operating system that uses the Linux kernel. the kernel is the last ( well close ) layer between the software and the hardware in a computer system. an operating system is basically a set of programs ( tools, if you will ) that make up the whole system. you have ls, cd, mkdir, cp, and many many others for filesystem manipulation, you have gcc for c code compilation, you have various tools for configuring devices, ie ifconfig , modprobe, insmod, etc etc etc. these are all what make up the operating system. we have a unix-like system today, ( which is effectivley unix, for all practical USAGE purposes, its UNIX ) IP issues and copyright aside, GNU/Linux IS unix. anyway what the GNU people would like you to call the operating system you are using, is GNU/Linux. GNU is the system, Linux is the kernel. originally the GNU system was going to use the HURD kernel, but it wasnt ready when Linux was ready for testing on the net, and so GNU uses linux as its kernel. and of course, the aim of all this was/is to create a 'free' unix like os, a non commercial OS that can be used, distributed however one likes, ( within the limitations of the GPL ), theres lots more explanation that could be given but i will stop there. for more info, see the gnu.org website, as well as one of my favorite sites for reading about cool stuff, the jargon file, hold on lemme find that link....here it is : http://catb.org/esr/jargon/html/

have alot of fun

norsk hedensk

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LEARN ABOUT CENTOS

linux

LINUX(4)                                                   BSD Kernel Interfaces Manual                                                   LINUX(4)

NAME

     linux -- Linux ABI support

SYNOPSIS

     To compile support for this ABI into an i386 kernel place the following line in your kernel configuration file:

           options COMPAT_LINUX

     for an amd64 kernel use:

           options COMPAT_LINUX32

     Alternatively, to load the ABI as a module at boot time, place the following line in loader.conf(5):

           linux_load="YES"

DESCRIPTION

     The linux module provides limited Linux ABI (application binary interface) compatibility for userland applications.  The module provides the
     following significant facilities:

     o   An image activator for correctly branded elf(5) executable images

     o   Special signal handling for activated images

     o   Linux to native system call translation

     It is important to note that the Linux ABI support it not provided through an emulator.  Rather, a true (albeit limited) ABI implementation
     is provided.

     The following sysctl(8) tunable variables are available:

     compat.linux.osname       Linux kernel operating system name.

     compat.linux.osrelease    Linux kernel operating system release.  Changing this to something else is discouraged on non-development systems,
                               because it may change the way Linux programs work.  Recent versions of GNU libc are known to use different syscalls
                               depending on the value of this sysctl.

     compat.linux.oss_version  Linux Open Sound System version.

     The linux module can be linked into the kernel statically with the COMPAT_LINUX kernel configuration option or loaded as required.  The fol-
     lowing command will load the module if it is neither linked into the kernel nor already loaded as a module:

           if ! kldstat -v | grep -E 'linux(aout|elf)' > /dev/null; then
                   kldload linux > /dev/null 2>&1
           fi

     Note that dynamically linked Linux executables will require a suitable environment in /compat/linux.  Specifically, the Linux run-time
     linker's hints files should be correctly initialized.  For this reason, it is common to execute the following commands to prepare the system
     to correctly run Linux executables:

           if [ -x /compat/linux/sbin/ldconfig ]; then
                   /compat/linux/sbin/ldconfig -r /compat/linux
           fi

     For information on loading the linux kernel loadable module automatically on system startup, see rc.conf(5).  This information applies
     regardless of whether the linux module is statically linked into the kernel or loaded as a module.

FILES

     /compat/linux       minimal Linux run-time environment
     /compat/linux/proc  limited Linux process file system
     /compat/linux/sys   limited Linux system file system

SEE ALSO

     brandelf(1), elf(5), linprocfs(5), linsysfs(5)

HISTORY

     Linux ABI support first appeared in FreeBSD 2.1.

BSD                                                              February 8, 2010                                                              BSD