this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
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Linux
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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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Why version them if you could simply have backups? I rarely want old config files...
Versioning is one of those things that you don't realize you need until it's too late. Also, commits have messages that can be used to explain why something was done, which can be useful to store info without infodumping comments into your files.
Why versioning and not backups? I get the part of commit messages, but that's hardly worth the effort for me. If I have a config file which works, I usually keep it that way. And if it stops working, my old documentation is outdated anyway.
you just push the git repo to a remote somewhere and that's your backup
Why do we use versioning for code instead of backups? Simple, versioning is better than backups for almost all text files, since it's a granular backup with change messages etc.
You can ask the same question about code.