Thanks for this explanation. This was my understanding as well, except for the GNU part.

I asked because the parent commenter directly above my first comment made the distinction between the operating system and the kernel. I wasn’t actually sure what the overall umbrella “OS” was for Linux, since as you say the kernel is Linux while there are GNU packages. I can’t really recall someone on Lemmy saying what exactly the operating system is for any given computer that happens to run Linux as the kernel.

I guess this scratches at what the definition of an operating system is: Windows, macOS, or GNU/Linux. In reality, doesn’t Windows run on the Unix kernel? Why don’t we call it Windows/Unix then? Is Unix used with other “operating systems” that layer on top of the Unix kernel itself?

I went to school for electrical engineering btw and had to take many classes about digital logic and all of the entry level stuff about PCs at a hardware level. Didn’t really get taught much about what goes on top of the hardware aside from maybe microcontrollers with Assembly and C.

Thanks anyways!