this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2026
625 points (95.8% liked)

Linux

68249 readers
224 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 7 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I like the car analogy. I never had a car, and the last time I called to use one, I had had eye surgery and needed to get home.

There are many aspects of the analogy that match quite well:

  • some types of motor vehicles like ambulances and trucks are clearly useful but most uses are not
  • cars have a massive negative environmental impact (220 grams of CO2 per every kilometer, not to speak of toxic air pollution, photochemical smog, and particulate matter that appears to cause dementia)
  • especially in cities, car feel much faster than they effectively are
  • cars destroy cities and walkable communities, to such a degree that European cities like Paris come to new life after restricting cars
  • cars are extremely convenient, such that they become an addiction quickly, and after a while you don't even believe you can't walk two miles on your feet. You even lose your sense of walking distances.
  • cars massively increase the daily distance you travel, because of Marchetti's constant (humans have a time budget of one hour travel a day), which changes your whole daily routines, leads to more distant work places, urban sprawl in housing, and after a while you are really physically dependent on them
  • using cars is bad for your own health because it leads to lack of exercise, which leads to multiple common and deadly diseases
  • cars do actually cost a lot of money which is sucked up by a corrupt industry and even more corrupt fossil fuel producers