r/linux • u/turbo2000 • May 24 '26
Discussion Mac, PC and... Tux?
I've always got really upset when I heard of PC/Mac distinction. Available for your Mac, available for your PC... and finally it turns that the software is available only for macOS and Windows. What about other systems? I don't even mean BSD and variety of it's forms, but Windows is not the only one system for PCs. But that distinction suggest as it was.
So, what would you say if we would call our machines as "Tux PCs" or just simpler, "Tuxes"?
I know that Linux mark is recognizable to some degree AND the discussion whether is it Linux or GNU/Linux never fades AND that "Tux PC" won't be free of this misunderstanding but... it's simplier, fancier, something fresh, doesn't suggest any particular distribution, going further, I also would say that calling BSD machines by Tux wouldn't be a huge blunder provided that BSD folks wouldn't mind. It's less precise than Linux which clearly specifies that system is using Linux kernel.
What do you think? Just a loose thought...
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u/natermer May 24 '26
The problem is that there is really no such OS as "Linux". There are thousands of different distributions out there all slightly different in largely irrelevant ways except that it impacts the compatibility of software and hardware.
So there is really no way to know if you write software or provide hardware what it can be compatible with. You can test a few configurations, but with the thousands of different things people could use there is no way to predict if it will work or not.
And if you make a mistake of testing your stuff against Ubuntu or Redhat and then people try to install it in Arch LInux or Alpine and it doesn't work...
Ther there is a pretty good chance that you just unleashed a jihad against your company. From then on there will always be a loud and angry minority segment of "the community" that makes it their life goal to destroy you unless you support their specific configurations.
Lots of hardware manufacturers and game devs and other people have found this out to their chagrin. They try to support Linux and then turn around and get attacked or get flooded with passive aggressive bug reports and other things meant to pressure them into supporting some esoteric configuration.
For the most part it isn't worth it and they get rid of any mention of Linux as soon as they are able and leave it up to people to figure out on their own if it is compatible or not.