The penguin's name is "Tux" and he's the official Linux mascot.

I think Linus Torvalds picked it a long time ago, he said he wanted something that was non-threatening, so hence the penguin lol.

The debate about Linux vs GNU/Linux imo, is one of the stupidest and pedantic debates I've ever heard. Maybe it mattered 30+ years ago when things were much less developed and only hardcore nerds and programmers used it, but now days it's only important to grognards and neckbeards.

Hot take, but it's like those pretentious music enthusiasts that will argue about what precise genre an artist fits into. "I would say they are post-progressive indie skitzo-pop. No way! They are clearly more neo-grunge sca-punk with post-rock elements" who cares?? Have your ultra-precise categories in your personal music collection all you want, but acting like it's based on some hardcore objective truths of the universe is stupid.

Nobody is confused when I say I run Linux as my OS. Actually, people do get confused but it's not because of GNU/Linux, it's because they haven't ever heard of Linux and thought that Windows and MacOS were the only 2 OSes for computers.

If somebody genuinely pulled an "um, actually" on me for saying Linux vs GNU/Linux, I would scream laugh loudly and then change the subject.

Here we go. ...

Linux is the kernel.

Gnu refers to the userland tools.

Many say gnu no longer really applies as the userland tools are provided by more than GNU's specific set.

Why Linux is portrayed as a Penguin?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tux_(mascot)

BTW/Arch

I really don't care what ppl call it, I call it "Linux", because saying "GNU/Linux" is really annoying. Also, I like Alpine so yeah I can say that I use "Linux".

What's better is GNU. IDGAF if the kernel is Linux or HURD as long as my hardware works, but I do care about preferring copyleft-licensed stuff to permissively-licensed stuff.

Both. Richard and Linux paved the way for what all FOSS and the world currently is

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tux_(mascot)

TIL, Linus Torvalds just likes penguins.

Just go with whatever software distribution you use.

Systemd/Linux

Linux/GNU. GNU would never have been widely adopted anywhere without the Linux kernel. Plus, Linux can be made to run with alternatives to GNU. Putting GNU first is putting the cart before the horse.

Gun/Linux 🔫

GNU/Linux is the more technically accurate term, but in practice, most people say "Linux" so that others know what they're talking about.

And the reason for Tux is because Linus Torvalds was once bitten by a penguin.

GNU+Linux 😀

I love them all, man.

As the others made a good point, Linux is the kernel (program that connects hardware altogether and manages processes). GNU is an organisation beginning in 1983 that made some vital userland programs (Bash, GCC, readline, GNOME, GTK, GIMP, etc.) as a replacement of the proprietary ones found in UNIX and Windows. Linux is created by a Finnish student Linus Torvalds and is not a part of the GNU project but it's been licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), the first free software license.

Linux is used by a lot of companies, and some of the products that have Linux inside refuse to accept the paradigm of software freedom. Examples of this are: Chrome OS, Windows Subsystem for Linux, Google Android and some (but not all) appliances (like routers) that are locked-in and contain proprietary blobs.

Therefore, in technical discussions, I use the word "Linux" to refer to the OS, as "this software is compatible with Linux". But, when I want to stress out software freedom, given a large influence of the GNU project, I say "GNU/Linux".

Neither it’s GNU^Linux (read: GNU to the power of Linux)