this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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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.
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I am in agreement with most if not all the above points. Didn't agree with terming a distro the worst of anything based on a single metric.
~~ TPW~~ CPU TDP to use it as a rough efficiency metric. Probably not very accurate but roughly representative. HW meant hardware.
Maybe in many cases repurposing hardware makes sense but based on the source and cost of electricity, hw process generation it might not even be feasible to run compared to modern hw. Might be better to recycle them responsibly than keep those running.
In end I guess you realise there are many factors to consider to determine something good, bad.
Of course, hats why I said bad for the environment. If it was not rolling, maybe. But if you do updates at least twice a week it will consume lots or energy. If you use old hardware or not I think its independend from that.
Even assuming all other factors remain same sure it uses more power but by how much? Best case by how much do you expect the increase to be ? 5-10% of their daily electricity consumption ?
And when you consider the power source, hw efficiency and so on theres no way to assess what the environmental effect an OS has.
Also you are assuming behavior of the person remains the same when using a precompiled packages v. compiling their own. I've installed many sw just to try for a few minutes and remove just to try various options. If it takes hours to compile I'd be very picky on what I install.
Agree on the last. I also try a lot more packages. But its still rolling, in practice how many hours does your PC compile a week? Would be curious.