Linux is not, by any means, a good operating system.
It’s one quality, if it can be said to posses one, it is that it is, for reasons that will be discussed further, marginally less bad than other operating systems.
It is marginally less slow, marginally less stupid (okay, compared to certain versions of Windows, A LOT less stupid), and somewhat less bothered by the sorts of pathological profit-seeking behavior (tragedy of the commons? enshittification? what are we calling it these days?) you’d expect to find in a rich society without universal health care.
it works with a lot of stuff, because a lot of people over a long period of time have put a lot of effort into making it work with a lot of stuff, and we are very grateful to them for it.
Thank you, Linux contributors.
If Linux is where it is today, it is because of your patience, because of the love you have put into an otherwise undeserving software project, because you took time out of your life to make this little thing a little nicer than it would have been otherwise.
Because you cared.
And not only did you care, but you were brave enough to reach out, to try to communicate, over time and space and across different languages, to understand, to help.
And it is because of this, each one of these small, silent love letters expressed in electrons, that Linux is currently running basically the entire fucking internet.
If God can be said to be that human ability to quiet the beast, to make a little extra effort to listen and understand before succumbing to rage, to keep trying and trying and trying in the face of the endless dark, then Linux can be said to be God’s operating system.