When I actually started doing hobby projects, I remembered that feeling with Windows 9x where you learn to avoid "wrong" actions which have a potential of hanging your PC. You don't even think about it. Just get used that you don't move the cursor after clicking there, you don't click here again after a first double click, and other such.

While things like editing config files were ... more normal for the average person even, you'd have a paper manual generally. For everything, kitchen appliances and anything technical you could buy too. You wouldn't expect everything to just work without reading it. Freezes and crashes were worse.

Windows won because most people didn't know of anything else.

But but but... my parents stories about self-made, and cheapskate, and he's rich cause apparently he's not frivolous, and wears sweatpants, and other dumbass lies they ate up...

Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds have apparently never met in person before, despite their pseudo-rivalry.

Is it, though? I don't know about you, but most (if not all) of my interactions with my computer are at levels above the kernel

Someone might remember Bill 300 years from now as a bump on the road for Linux.

Obviously a guy that thinks being as dishonest as it is possible to get away with is perfectly good business.

That's the secret to "earning" billions of dollars.

What about the boat loads of marketing - ads - aimed at making you believe those proprietary programs are the best? Clearly you fell for it.

How has Linus not won a Nobel?

What category would he be eligible for?

• Nobel Prize in physics
• Nobel Prize in chemistry
• Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
• Nobel Prize in literature
• Nobel Peace Prize
• The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel

What category would he be eligible for?

• Nobel Prize in physics
• Nobel Prize in chemistry
• Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
• Nobel Prize in literature
• Nobel Peace Prize
• The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel

Heh, you think there'll be people to remember things in 300 years?

What category would he be eligible for?

• Nobel Prize in physics
• Nobel Prize in chemistry
• Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
• Nobel Prize in literature
• Nobel Peace Prize
• The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel

Gates is still very active in his charity organization

Then where do you draw the line?

The vast majority of people also don’t interact with the GNU tools at all, so GNU/Linux isn’t the OS either. KDE would be, or perhaps the distro itself. I’m not sure I’d call the OS GNU/Linux/Ubuntu/KDE. At that point might as well throw in firefox, for many it’s pretty much all the interaction they have with the computer.

Or what about the distros that don’t use the GNU coreutils? They are generally still called linux and still get to run apps made for linux, even with no traces of GNU.

What category would he be eligible for?

• Nobel Prize in physics
• Nobel Prize in chemistry
• Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
• Nobel Prize in literature
• Nobel Peace Prize
• The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel

We need a prize for software developers!

I made that comment in slight jest. But anyway using non GNU OS still is consistent with my viewpoint that you don't operate the kernel per se. The kernel sits at a layer below what the user operates.

As for the argument of apps being made for Linux, it is nothing more than just a semantic shortcut to the common ground between all these independent OS

What category would he be eligible for?

• Nobel Prize in physics
• Nobel Prize in chemistry
• Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
• Nobel Prize in literature
• Nobel Peace Prize
• The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel