this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2026
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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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But its just a matter of 2 dashes. It shouldn't be a problem.
You misunderstand me. It's not about typing it. It's not conforming to prevalent Linux paradigms which creates artificial confusion and learning difficulties. There's a reason it's
git pulland notgit -L,perf annotateand notperf -A. It's a great semantic difference like<b>vs<h3>. I'm saying this as an Arch user.I don't think it would make ANY difference if the option was named
git --pullinsteadgit pull(you don't have to use the single uppercase). That is NOT the same semantic difference between and , because it (the pull example) operates the same as before. The only difference are the two dashes. I don't see how this creates confusion or learning difficulties.The prevalent way (except for ancient tools like tar), and thus the norm, is that options are meant to be optional and subcommands are like old "do one thing" Unix commands (do completely different things, can have completely different set of arguments) but you prepend the name of the software in front of them. You can see the impact of this reflected in documentation for argument parsers: https://docs.python.org/3.14/library/argparse.html#%3A%7E%3Atext=Required+options+are+generally+considered+bad+form+because+users+expect+options+to+be+optional https://gobyexample.com/command-line-subcommands#%3A%7E%3Atext=Command-Line+Subcommands-%2CGo+by+Example%3A+Command-Line+Subcommands%2Cthat+have+their+own+flags.
I know how subcommands work. But that is not the point I am making. Having two dashes in front of it or not like
pacman removeorpacman --removedoes not change how the command operates. It is literally having two dashes or not and therefore is not an issue.Hmm, I don't know about Pacman, but for example openSUSE's
zypper removehas a--clean-depsflag, which doesn't exist on the other subcommands. So, it wouldn't make sense to have it bezypper --remove --clean-deps...