Hacker News Reader

Comment by ed25519FUUU | Hacker News Reader

If you include mobile games on ARM64 the the number of Linux gamers is significantly higher than x86.

While true, often people talk about the proportion of Linux gamers in the context of growing desktop Linux market share, "the year of the Linux desktop," etc. Since Android and desktop Linux programs are largely incompatible, mobile games on ARM64 don't matter in this context.

Compatibility is much less of an issue these days. My son apparently plays Android games on Windows in an emulator. I'm sure the same thing is possible on Linux. I plan to finally switch to gaming on Linux, because Linux support for games is much better than it was in the past, and even games that don't officially work in Linux, in practice often still do due to Steam Linux support. Even if you didn't buy the game on Steam, I've been told.

So I hope to soon join that 1.5%, and with the direction Windows seems to be going, I expect a lot more people will do the same.

I'll be pedantic and cynical;

- Android isn't quite Linux

- A good number if not the majority of 'mobile games' are gachas/cow-clickers.

At least to me, it's a bit like lumping old folks who play at churches into a 'Gamblers that visit casinos once a week' metric.

> Android isn't quite Linux

If we're being pedantic, let me be clear that Android is Linux. It just doesn't use the traditional userland, mostly implemented by GNU. So it's Linux but not GNU/Linux.

if we're being correct and practical, let me be clear that 'linux' is gnu/linux, so android uses linux kernel, but is not 'linux'

also, 'gaming' (union of pc and console) and 'mobile gaming' are significantly different demographics

Linux is NOT GNU/Linux

Gnu = coreutils + POSIX + gcc + others;

Linux = the kernel

Accurate, but in general terms... Linux desktop = GNU/Linux.

No sir. You can't win both sides of the argument whenever it's more convenient for you.

If you are going to write GNU/Linux, be consistent with its usage.

Linux is the kernel. My OS is Ubuntu, not just Linux. Android is also Linux.

Or KDE/Linux. :)

If we're being pedantic the traditional userland isn't mostly implenented by GNU. systemd, X.org, pulseaudio, gnome, KDE, qt, gtk, etc are not GNU.

This comment led me to discover that GNOME is no longer part of the GNU project

Ah this reckons me of this copypasta:

> 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.

> At least to me, it's a bit like lumping old folks who play at churches into a 'Gamblers that visit casinos once a week' metric.

Slight aside, but in the past I've worked at some of those bingo halls that drew the sunday after-church old folks crowd. They were some of the most hardcore gamblers I have ever seen. Gods dandelions these ladies weren't.

Yep. And the same is true of mobile gamers. I’m not sure about the stats, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the number of hours spent playing crappy mobile games is greater than the number of hours spent playing PC games. Mobile games don’t always look like pc games, but they sure are a giant market.

To follow common sense:

There is GNU/Linux, GNU/Hurd and Google/Linux.

If not indicated otherwise Linux is refers to GNU/Linux. Like America refers to the United States of America. Android refers to an incompatible custom userland by Google (anti GPL, closed-source PlayServices) and a usually heavily patched Linux-Kernel with many closed-source modules. Looking at Android 13 it is using an old 4.x Linux-Kernel as base.

Probably neither Google nor the FSF like that usage of terms?

That being said. I’m playing with Linux :)

There's no GNU/Hurd.

That's vaporware, never used by anyone for anything useful.

Haha ;)

I don't think that's very relevant when we're talking about AMD CPU usage, although it does mean that Phoronix may very well be technically wrong when talking about "Linux" gaming statistics. That said it's quite clear they mean GNU/Linux desktop gaming using x86_64-based systems.

What you guys are 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.

Your copypasta is out of date. https://www.gnu.org/gnu/incorrect-quotation.en.html. The updated version is:

A quotation circulates on the Internet, attributed to me, but it wasn't written by me.

Here's the text that is circulating. Most of it was copied from statements I have made, but the part italicized here is not from me. It makes points that are mistaken or confused... < original copypasta>

The main error is that Linux is not strictly speaking part of the GNU system—whose kernel is GNU Hurd. The version with Linux, we call “GNU/Linux.” It is OK to call it “GNU” when you want to be really short, but it is better to call it “GNU/Linux” so as to give Torvalds some credit.

We don't use the term “corelibs,” and I am not sure what that would mean, but GNU is much more than the specific packages we developed for it. I set out in 1983 to develop an operating system, calling it GNU, and that job required developing whichever important packages we could not find elsewhere.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com