Linus Torvalds
Linus Torvalds in 2018
Born	Linus Benedict Torvalds (1969-12-28) 28 December 1969 (age 55) Helsinki, Finland
Nationality	Finnish American^[1]
Alma mater	University of Helsinki (M.S.)^[2]
Occupation	Software engineer
Employer	Linux Foundation
Known for	Linux, Git
Spouse	Tove Torvalds
Children	3
Parent(s)	Nils Torvalds (father) Anna "Mikke" Torvalds (née Törnqvist, mother)
Relatives	Sara Torvalds (sister) Leo Törnqvist (grandfather) Ole Torvalds (grandfather)

Linus Benedict Torvalds (/ˈliːnəs ˈtɔːrvɔːldz/ ^ⓘ LEE-nəs TOR-vawldz,^[3] Finland Swedish: [ˈliːnʉs ˈtuːrvɑlds] ^ⓘ; born 28 December 1969) is a Finnish software engineer who is the creator and lead developer of the Linux kernel. He also created the distributed version control system Git.

He was honored, along with Shinya Yamanaka, with the 2012 Millennium Technology Prize by the Technology Academy Finland "in recognition of his creation of a new open source operating system for computers leading to the widely used Linux kernel".^[4] He is also the recipient of the 2014 IEEE Computer Society Computer Pioneer Award^[5] and the 2018 IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award.^[6]

Life and career

[edit]

Early years

[edit]

Torvalds was born in Helsinki, Finland, on 28 December 1969, the son of journalists Anna and Nils Torvalds,^[7] the grandson of statistician Leo Törnqvist and of poet Ole Torvalds, and the great-grandson of journalist and soldier Toivo Karanko. His parents were campus radicals at the University of Helsinki in the 1960s. His family belongs to the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. He was named after Linus Pauling, the Nobel Prize–winning American chemist, although in the book Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution, he is quoted as saying, "I think I was named equally for Linus the Peanuts cartoon character", noting that this made him "half Nobel Prize–winning chemist and half blanket-carrying cartoon character".^[8]

His interest in computers began with a VIC-20^[9] at the age of 11 in 1981. He started programming for it in BASIC, then later by directly accessing the 6502 CPU in machine code (he did not utilize assembly language).^[10] He then purchased a Sinclair QL, which he modified extensively, especially its operating system. "Because it was so hard to get software for it in Finland", he wrote his own assembler and editor "(in addition to Pac-Man graphics libraries)"^[11] for the QL, and a few games.^[12]^[13] He wrote a Pac-Man clone, Cool Man.

Torvalds attended the University of Helsinki from 1988 to 1996,^[14] graduating with a master's degree in computer science from the NODES research group.^[15] His academic career was interrupted after his first year of study when he joined the Finnish Navy Nyland Brigade in the summer of 1989, selecting the 11-month officer training program to fulfill the mandatory military service of Finland. He gained the rank of second lieutenant, with the role of an artillery observer.^[16]

In 1990, Torvalds resumed his university studies, and was exposed to Unix for the first time in the form of a DEC MicroVAX running ULTRIX.^[17] Later, he bought computer science professor Andrew Tanenbaum's book Operating Systems: Design and Implementation, in which Tanenbaum describes MINIX, an educational stripped-down version of Unix.^[18]

On 5 January 1991^[19] he purchased an Intel 80386-based IBM PC clone^[20] before receiving a copy of MINIX, which in turn enabled him to begin work on Linux.

Linux

[edit]

The first Linux prototypes were publicly released on the Internet in late 1991 from an FTP server at his university.^[8]^[21] Version 1.0 was released on 14 March 1994.^[22]

Torvalds first encountered the GNU Project in the autumn of 1991 when another Swedish-speaking computer science student, Lars Wirzenius, took him to the University of Technology to listen to free software guru Richard Stallman's speech. Because of the talk and pressure from other contributors, Torvalds would ultimately switch his original license (which forbade commercial use) to Stallman's GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2) for his Linux kernel.^[23]

After a visit to Transmeta in late 1996,^[24] Torvalds accepted a position at the company in California, where he worked from February 1997 to June 2003. He then moved to the Open Source Development Labs, which has since merged with the Free Standards Group to become the Linux Foundation, under whose auspices he continues to work. In June 2004, Torvalds and his family moved to Dunthorpe, Oregon^[25] to be closer to the OSDL's headquarters in Beaverton.

From 1997 to 1999, he was involved in 86open, helping select the standard binary format for Linux and Unix. In 1999, he was named by the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the world's top 100 innovators under age 35.^[26]

In 1999, Red Hat and VA Linux, both leading developers of Linux-based software, presented Torvalds with stock options in gratitude for his creation.^[27] That year both companies went public and Torvalds's share value briefly shot up to about US$20 million.^[28]^[29]

His personal mascot is a penguin nicknamed Tux,^[30] which has been widely adopted by the Linux community as the Linux kernel's mascot.^[31]

Although Torvalds believes "open source is the only right way to do software", he also has said that he uses the "best tool for the job", even if that includes proprietary software.^[32] He was criticized for his use and alleged advocacy of the proprietary BitKeeper software for version control in the Linux kernel. He subsequently wrote a free-software replacement for it called Git.

In 2008, Torvalds stated that he used the Fedora Linux distribution because it had fairly good support for the PowerPC processor architecture, which he favored at the time.^[33] He confirmed this in a 2012 interview.^[34] Torvalds abandoned GNOME for a while after the release of GNOME 3.0, saying, "The developers have apparently decided that it's 'too complicated' to actually do real work on your desktop, and have decided to make it really annoying to do". He then switched to Xfce.^[35] In 2013, Torvalds resumed using GNOME, noting that "they have extensions now that are still much too hard to find; but with extensions you can make your desktop look almost as good as it used to look two years ago".^[36]^[37]

The Linux Foundation currently sponsors Torvalds so he can work full-time on improving Linux.^[38]

In 2012, while giving a talk at Aalto University, Torvalds said "fuck you" and raised his middle finger after critiquing the company Nvidia, which specializes in GPU technology. He said Nvidia was, at the time, the single worst company he has dealt with in the development of the kernel. In the talk, he also discussed other elements of computing.^[39]^[40]

Torvalds is known for vocally disagreeing with other developers on the Linux kernel mailing list.^[41] Calling himself a "really unpleasant person", he explained, "I'd like to be a nice person and curse less and encourage people to grow rather than telling them they are idiots. I'm sorry—I tried, it's just not in me."^[42]^[43] His attitude, which he considers necessary for making his points clear, has drawn criticism from Intel programmer Sage Sharp and systemd developer Lennart Poettering, among others.^[44]^{[failed verification]}^[45]

On Sunday, 16 September 2018, the Linux kernel Code of Conflict was suddenly replaced by a new Code of Conduct based on the Contributor Covenant. Shortly thereafter, in the release notes for Linux 4.19-rc4, Torvalds apologized for his behavior, calling his personal attacks of the past "unprofessional and uncalled for" and announced a period of "time off" to "get some assistance on how to understand people's emotions and respond appropriately". It soon transpired that these events followed The New Yorker approaching Torvalds with a series of questions critical of his conduct.^[46]^[47]^[48] Following the release of Linux 4.19 on 22 October 2018, Torvalds returned to maintaining the kernel.^[49]

In 2024, Russian developers were excluded from the list of Linux kernel maintainers. Torvalds commented: "I'm Finnish. Did you think I'd be supporting Russian aggression?"^[50]^[51]

The Linus/Linux connection

[edit]

Initially, Torvalds wanted to call the kernel he developed Freax (a combination of "free", "freak", and the letter X to indicate that it was a Unix-like system), but his friend Ari Lemmke, who administered the FTP server where the kernel was first hosted, named Torvalds' directory linux.^[52]

Authority and trademark

[edit]

As of 2006, approximately 2% of the Linux kernel was written by Torvalds.^[29] Despite the thousands who have contributed to it, his percentage is still one of the largest. However, he said in 2012 that his own personal contribution is now mostly merging code written by others, with little programming.^[53] He retains the highest authority to decide which new code is incorporated into the standard Linux kernel.^[54]

Torvalds holds the Linux trademark^[55] and monitors its use,^[56] chiefly through the Linux Mark Institute.

Other software

[edit]

Git

[edit]

On 3 April 2005, Torvalds began development on Git, version control software that later became widely used. On 26 July 2005, he handed over Git's maintenance to Junio Hamano, a major project contributor.

Subsurface

[edit]

Subsurface is software for logging and planning scuba dives, which Torvalds began developing in late 2011. It is free and open-source software distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2. Dirk Hohndel became its head maintainer in late 2012.^[57]^[58]

Personal life

[edit]

Linus Torvalds is married to Tove Torvalds (née Monni), a six-time Finnish national karate champion, whom he met in late 1993. He was running introductory computer laboratory exercises for students and instructed the course attendees to send him an e-mail as a test, to which Tove responded with an e-mail asking for a date.^[8] They were later married and have three daughters, two of whom were born in the United States.^[59] The Linux kernel's reboot system call accepts their dates of birth (written in hexadecimal) as magic values.^[60]^[61]

Torvalds has described himself as "completely a-religious—atheist", adding, "I find that people seem to think religion brings morals and appreciation of nature. I actually think it detracts from both. It gives people the excuse to say, 'Oh, nature was just created,' and so the act of creation is seen to be something miraculous. I appreciate the fact that, 'Wow, it's incredible that something like this could have happened in the first place.'" He later added that while in Europe religion is mostly a personal issue, in the United States it has become very politicized. When discussing the issue of church and state separation, he said, "Yeah, it's kind of ironic that in many European countries, there is actually a kind of legal binding between the state and the state religion."^[62] In "Linus the Liberator", a story about the March LinuxWorld Conference, Torvalds says: "There are like two golden rules in life. One is 'Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you.' For some reason, people associate this with Christianity. I'm not a Christian. I'm agnostic. The other rule is 'Be proud of what you do.'"^[63]

In 2004, Torvalds moved with his family from Silicon Valley to Portland, Oregon.^[64]

In 2010, Torvalds became a United States citizen and registered to vote in the United States. As of that year, he was unaffiliated with any U.S. political party, saying, "I have way too much personal pride to want to be associated with any of them, quite frankly."^[59]

Linus developed an interest in scuba diving in the early 2000s and has achieved numerous certifications, leading him to create the Subsurface project.^[65]

Awards and achievements

[edit]

Awards and achievements
Year	Award	Notes
2019	Great Immigrants Award	The Carnegie Corporation of New York honored Torvalds.^[66]
2018	IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award	IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award is conferred by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for outstanding contributions to consumer electronics technology has been named in honor of the co-founder and honorary chairman of Sony Corporation, Masaru Ibuka. 2018 Ibuka award was conferred to Linus Torvalds "For his leadership of the development and proliferation of Linux."^[6]
2014	IEEE Computer Pioneer Award	On 23 April 2014, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers named Torvalds as the 2014 recipient of the IEEE Computer Society's Computer Pioneer Award. The Computer Pioneer Award was established in 1981 by the IEEE Computer Society Board of Governors to recognize and honor the vision of those whose efforts resulted in the creation and continued vitality of the computer industry. The award is presented to outstanding individuals whose main contribution to the concepts and development of the computer field was made at least 15 years earlier.^[67]
2012	Internet Hall of Fame	On 23 April 2012, at Internet Society's Global INET conference in Geneva, Switzerland, Torvalds was one of the inaugural inductees into the Internet Hall of Fame, one of ten in the Innovators category and thirty-three overall inductees.^[68]
2012	Millennium Technology Prize	On 20 April 2012, Torvalds was declared one of two winners of that year's Millennium Technology Prize,^[69] along with Shinya Yamanaka.^[70] The honor is widely described as technology's equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
2010	C&C Prize	He was awarded the C&C Prize by the NEC Corporation in 2010 for "contributions to the advancement of the information technology industry, education, research, and the improvement of our lives".^[71]
2008	Hall of Fellows	In 2008, he was inducted into the Hall of Fellows of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, "for the creation of the Linux kernel and the management of open source development of the widely used Linux operating system."^[72]^[73]
2005	Vollum Award	In August 2005, Torvalds received the Vollum Award from Reed College.^[74]
2003	Linus (Moon)	In 2003, the naming of the asteroid moon Linus was motivated in part by the fact that the discoverer was an enthusiastic Linux user. Although the naming proposal referred to the mythological Linus, son of the muse Calliope and the inventor of melody and rhythm, the name was also meant to honor Linus Torvalds, and Linus van Pelt, a character in the Peanuts comic strip.^[75]
2001	Takeda Award	In 2001, he shared the Takeda Award for Social/Economic Well-Being with Richard Stallman and Ken Sakamura.
2000	Lovelace Medal	In 2000, he was awarded the Lovelace Medal from the British Computer Society.^[76]
1998	EFF Pioneer Award	In 1998, Torvalds received an EFF Pioneer Award.^[77]
1997	Academic Honors	In 1997, Torvalds received his master's degree (Laudatur Grade) from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki. Two years later he received honorary doctor status at Stockholm University, and in 2000, he received the same honor from his alma mater.^[78] University of Helsinki has named an auditorium after Torvalds and his computer is on display at the Department of Computer Science.
1996	9793 Torvalds (Asteroid)	In 1996, the asteroid 9793 Torvalds was named after him.^[79]

Media recognition

[edit]

Time magazine has recognized Torvalds multiple times:

In 2000, he was 17th in their Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century poll.^[80]
In 2004, he was named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine.^[81]
In 2006, the magazine's Europe edition named him one of the revolutionary heroes of the past 60 years.^[27]

InfoWorld presented him with the 2000 Award for Industry Achievement.^[82] In 2005, Torvalds appeared as one of "the best managers" in a survey by BusinessWeek.^[83] In 2006, Business 2.0 magazine named him one of "10 people who don't matter" because the growth of Linux has shrunk Torvalds's individual impact.^[84]

In summer 2004, viewers of YLE (the Finnish Broadcasting Company) placed Torvalds 16th in the network's 100 Greatest Finns. In 2010, as part of a series called The Britannica Guide to the World's Most Influential People, Torvalds was listed among The 100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time (ISBN 9781615300037).^[85]

On 11 October 2017, the Linux company SUSE made a song titled "Linus Said" about the origin of the Linux kernel.^[86]

Bibliography

[edit]

Torvalds, Linus; Diamond, David (2001). Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary. New York City, United States: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-662072-4.^[87]
Himanen, Pekka (2001). The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age. Random House. ISBN 951-0-25417-7. Prologue: Linus Torvalds; Epilogue: Manuel Castells
Moody, Glyn: Rebel Code. Engl. the beginning of work: Rebel Code. Eng. Riikka Toivanen and Heikki Karjalainen. In January 2001. ISBN 951-31-2003-1.
Nikkanen, Tuula: The Linux story. Satku, 2000. ISBN 951-762-990-7.

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]

^ "Citizen Linus". Retrieved 10 December 2024.
^ "Linus Torvalds 2008 Fellow". Archived from the original on 9 July 2010.
^ "Linus Torvalds: Why Choose a Career in Linux and Open Source" on YouTube
^ "Technology Academy Finland – Stem cell pioneer and open source software engineer are 2012 Millennium Technology Prize laureates". Technologyacademy.fi. 19 April 2012. Archived from the original on 17 January 2014. Retrieved 24 April 2012.
^ "Computer-Pioneer-Award". Archived from the original on 4 May 2014. Retrieved 5 May 2014.
^ ^a ^b "List of IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award recipients" (PDF). IEEE. 3 April 2017. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 March 2018.
^ Torvalds
^ ^a ^b ^c Moody, Glyn (2002). Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution. Perseus Books Group. p. 336. ISBN 0-7382-0670-9.
^ Torvalds, pp. 6–7
^ Linus Torvalds, David Rusling (30 September 2016). LAS16-500K3: Fireside Chat with David Rusling and Linus Torvalds. 24:10: Linaro. Retrieved 8 October 2016.{{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
^ Ko, Ellen (27 September 2010). "Geek Time with Linus Torvalds". Retrieved 8 November 2015.
^ Torvalds, pp. 41–46
^ Torvalds, Linus: GMOVE. Program listing. In MikroBitti 11/1986, p. 63.
^ Torvalds & Diamond 2001, p. 38, 94.
^ "NODES research group". Cs.helsinki.fi. 16 October 2008. Archived from the original on 21 February 2010. Retrieved 13 March 2010.
^ Torvalds, p. 29
^ Torvalds, p. 53
^ "5.08: features". 4 September 2015. Archived from the original on 4 September 2015. Retrieved 3 March 2025.
^ "The nightmare continues". Linux News. Abc.se. 5 January 1991. Archived from the original on 5 December 1998. Retrieved 13 March 2010.
^ Torvalds, p. 60
^ Torvalds, Linus Benedict (25 August 1991). "What would you like to see most in minix?". Newsgroup: comp.os.minix. Usenet: 1991Aug25.205708.9541@klaava.Helsinki.FI. I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.
^ "Kernel 1.0 Source Code Release". Retrieved 27 October 2008.
^ Wirzenius, Lars. "The early days of Linux". LWN.net. Retrieved 14 April 2023.
^ "Linux Online – Linus Torvalds Bio". Linux.org. Archived from the original on 26 June 2004. Retrieved 13 March 2010.
^ Rogoway, Mike (7 June 2005). "Linus Torvalds, Incognito Inventor". The Oregonian. Archived from the original on 9 July 2014. Retrieved 8 July 2014. A sort of anti-celebrity, he is plainly ambivalent about fame and content to stay nestled at home in a tony cluster of million-dollar houses atop the densely forested hills of the Dunthorpe neighborhood.
^ "1999 Young Innovators Under 35: Linus Torvalds, 29". Technology Review. 1999. Archived from the original on 29 March 2011. Retrieved 14 August 2011.
^ ^a ^b Gumbel, Peter (13 November 2006). "Linus Torvalds". Time. Archived from the original on 30 September 2009. Retrieved 13 March 2010.
^ Rivlin, Gary. "Leader of the Free World". Wired. Retrieved 14 June 2008.
^ ^a ^b "Linus Torvalds: A Very Brief and Completely Unauthorized Biography". The Linux Information Project. Bellevue Linux Users Group. 24 January 2006. Retrieved 22 October 2010.
^ Torvalds, Linus (9 May 1996). "Re: Linux Logo prototype". Archived from the original on 30 May 2012.
^ "Why a Penguin?". Archived from the original on 13 January 2007. Retrieved 19 May 2009.. linux.org
^ Linus Torvalds at Google, on Git on YouTube, 9:50–10:00
^ Morris, Richard (17 July 2008). "Linus Torvalds, Geek of the Week". Archived from the original on 10 January 2010. Retrieved 3 August 2009.
^ "Interview with Linus Torvalds from Linux Format 163". TuxRadar. Linux Format. 29 November 2012. Archived from the original on 19 January 2014. Retrieved 3 February 2014.
^ Ricky (4 August 2011), "Linus Torvalds Ditches GNOME For Xfce", Digitizor, archived from the original on 11 April 2015, retrieved 8 November 2011
^ "Torvalds: I want to be nice, and curse less, but it's just not in me". The Register. 7 November 2012. Archived from the original on 13 November 2015. Retrieved 2 January 2013.
^ Heath, Nick. "Linus Torvalds switches back to Gnome 3.x desktop". ZDNet. Archived from the original on 3 February 2022. Retrieved 22 April 2019.
^ "About Us". The Linux Foundation. Retrieved 19 June 2013.
^ Garling, Caleb. "Nvidia Responds to F-Bomb From Linus Torvalds". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 13 December 2024.
^ Savov, Vlad (17 June 2012). "Linus Torvalds: 'fuck you, Nvidia' for not supporting Linux". The Verge. Retrieved 13 December 2024.
^ Vance, Ashlee (16 June 2015). "The Creator of Linux on the Future Without Him". Bloomberg.
^ Sharwood, Simon (19 January 2015). "Buggy? Angry? LET IT ALL OUT says Linus Torvalds". The Register. Retrieved 8 November 2015.
^ Clarke, Gavin (7 November 2012). "Torvalds: I want to be nice, and curse less, but it's just not in me". The Register. Retrieved 8 November 2015.
^ "Lennart Poettering: Open Source Community "Quite A Sick Place To Be In"". Slashdot. 6 October 2014. Retrieved 8 November 2015.
^ Gold, Jon (5 October 2015). "Linux kernel dev Sarah Sharp quits, citing 'brutal' communications style". Network World. Retrieved 8 November 2015.
^ "Linux 4.19-rc4 released, an apology, and a maintainership note". 16 September 2018.
^ Corbet, Jonathan (18 September 2018). "Code, conflict, and conduct". LWN.net.
^ Cohen, Noam (19 September 2018). "After Years of Abusive E-mails, the Creator of Linux Steps Aside". The New Yorker. New York City. ISSN 0028-792X.
^ Corbet, Jonathan (22 October 2018). "The 4.19 kernel is out". LWN.net.
^ "Re: [PATCH] Revert "MAINTAINERS: Remove some entries due to various compliance requirements." - Linus Torvalds". Kernel Mailing Lists. Archived from the original on 26 October 2024. Retrieved 28 October 2024.
^ "Linus Torvalds on Russian Developers". 2024.
^ Moody, Glen. "The Greatest OS That (Never) Was". Wired. Retrieved 22 July 2013.
^ "An Interview With Linus Torvalds". Tech Crunch. 19 April 2012. Retrieved 22 April 2012.
^ Ingo, Henrik. "Open Life: The Philosophy of Open Source (HTML book) | OpenLife.cc". www.openlife.cc. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
^ Linux trademark, 15 August 1994, IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: computer operating system software to facilitate computer use and operation. FIRST USE: 19940802. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19940802
^ "Linus Explains Linux Trademark Issues". Slashdot.org. 19 January 2000. Retrieved 13 March 2010.
^ "Subsurface | An open source divelog". subsurface-divelog.org. Retrieved 17 December 2021.
^ "License page on the Github for Subsurface". Github. 19 April 2022.
^ ^a ^b Rogoway, Mike (14 September 2010). "Linus Torvalds, already an Oregonian, now a U.S. citizen". The Oregonian. Retrieved 16 September 2010.
^ Torvalds, Linus. "index : kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git". Linux kernel. Retrieved 30 May 2013.
^ "Debian's reboot(2) man page". Retrieved 16 August 2011.
^ Richardson, Marjorie (1 November 1999). "Interview: Linus Torvalds". Linux Journal. Retrieved 2 April 2011.
^ Diamond, David. "Linus the Liberator". SiliconValley.com. Archived from the original on 27 January 2001. Retrieved 28 February 2020.
^ "Torvalds leaves Silicon Valley for Oregon". CNET.
^ "Divelog.blue Interviews: Linus Torvalds". Divelog.blue. Archived from the original on 19 February 2020. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
^ "Linus Torvalds". Carnegie Corporation of New York. Retrieved 27 June 2024.
^ "Linus Torvalds Named Recipient of the 2014 IEEE Computer Society Computer Pioneer Award". Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. 23 April 2014. Archived from the original on 4 May 2014. Retrieved 5 May 2014.
^ "2012 Internet Hall of Fame inductees 2012". Internet Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on 13 December 2012. Retrieved 24 April 2012.
^ "Linus Torvalds wins the tech. equivalent of a Nobel Prize: the Millennium Technology Prize". ZDNet. 19 April 2012. Archived from the original on 20 April 2012. Retrieved 24 April 2012.
^ "Yamanaka wins Finnish award for iPS work : National : DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE (The Daily Yomiuri)". Yomiuri Shimbun. Japan. 21 April 2012. Archived from the original on 22 April 2012.
^ von Eitzen, Chris (21 October 2010). "Linus Torvalds awarded 2010 C&C Prize". The H. Heinz Heise. Archived from the original on 24 October 2010. Retrieved 22 October 2010.
^ "The Computer History Museum Announces the 2008 Fellow Awards Recipients" (Press release). Computer History Museum. 18 June 2008. Retrieved 22 October 2010.
^ "Fellow Awards: Linus Torvalds". Computer History Museum. 21 October 2008. Archived from the original on 9 July 2010. Retrieved 22 October 2010.
^ "Linux creator Linus Torvalds honored with Reed College's Vollum Award". Web.reed.edu. 24 August 2005. Retrieved 13 March 2010.
^ Margot, Jean-Luc (2004). "Adaptive Optics Observations of Kalliope-Linus". UCLA. Retrieved 30 August 2013.
^ "Talking to Torvalds". British Computer Society. September 2007. Archived from the original on 2 October 2007. Retrieved 13 March 2008.
^ "Torvalds, Stallman, Simons Win 1998 Pioneer Awards". W2.eff.org. Archived from the original on 7 October 2010. Retrieved 13 March 2010.
^ Torvalds, p. 28
^ "9793 Torvalds (1996 BW4)". Retrieved 22 November 2022.
^ "The 2010 Time 100". Time. Archived from the original on 3 January 2007. Retrieved 7 May 2010.
^ Lessig, Lawrence (26 April 2004). "Linus Torvalds: The Free-Software Champion". Time magazine. Archived from the original on 23 May 2007. Retrieved 3 October 2006.
^ Nicholas Petreley (17 January 2000). "This year's Award for Industry Achievement goes to the creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds". InfoWorld. p. 82.
^ "The Best & Worst Managers of the Year". Bloomberg BusinessWeek. 10 January 2005. Archived from the original on 1 January 2005. Retrieved 13 March 2010.
^ "10 people who don't matter". CNN. 22 June 2006. Retrieved 13 March 2010.
^ "Linus Torvalds named one of the 100 most influential inventors". The H. 4 February 2010. Archived from the original on 8 February 2010. Retrieved 15 February 2010.
^ SUSE (11 October 2017), Linus Said – Music Parody (Momma Said), archived from the original on 11 December 2021, retrieved 22 October 2017
^
* Loney, Matt (10 April 2001). "Exclusive: Linus Torvalds tells his story". ZDNet. Retrieved 9 August 2017.
- Valsamidis, Tony (7 February 2003). "Red Hats off to a low maintenance son". Times Higher Education Supplement. p. 28.
- Wayner, Peter (1 May 2001). "Just for Fun, by Linus Torvalds and David Diamond; Rebel Code, by Glyn Moody". Wired. Retrieved 9 August 2017.

Further reading

[edit]

Himanen, Pekka; Torvalds, Linus; Castells, Manuel (2001). The Hacker Ethic. Secker & Warburg. ISBN 0-436-20550-5.

External links

[edit]

Jukka Paakki (2011). "Linus Torvalds". Biografiskt lexikon för Finland (in Swedish). Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland. urn:NBN:fi:sls-5464-1416928958070.
Linus' blog at Blogger (last post in 2011)
Linus Torvalds and His Five Entrepreneurial Lessons at AllBusiness.com
Young, Robert (March 1994). "Interview with Linus, the Author of Linux". Linux Journal (#1).
NPR Fresh Air episode
Ten years of NODES
Linus Torvalds: Linux succeeded thanks to selfishness and trust
No highs, no lows: Linus Torvalds on 25 years of Linux

Preceded by Michael Grätzel	Millennium Technology Prize winner 2012	Succeeded by Stuart Parkin

Linux kernel

Organization

Kernel	Linux Foundation Linux Mark Institute Linus's law Tanenbaum–Torvalds debate Tux SCO disputes Linaro GNU GPL v2 menuconfig Supported computer architectures Version history Criticism
Support	Developers The Linux Programming Interface kernel.org LKML Linux conferences Users Linux User Group (LUG)
People	Werner Almesberger H. Peter Anvin Jens Axboe Moshe Bar Suparna Bhattacharya Andries Brouwer Rémy Card Alan Cox Matthew Garrett Avi Kivity Con Kolivas Greg Kroah-Hartman Benson Leung Robert Love David S. Miller Ingo Molnár Andrew Morton Hans Reiser Rusty Russell Shuah Khan Linus Torvalds Theodore Ts'o Stephen Tweedie Harald Welte Chris Wright

Technical

Debugging

Startup

ABIs

APIs

Kernel

System Call Interface	POSIX ioctl select open read close sync … Linux-only futex epoll splice dnotify inotify readahead …
In-kernel	ALSA Crypto API io uring DRM kernfs Memory barrier New API RCU Video4Linux IIO

Userspace

Daemons, File systems	bpffs configfs devfs devpts debugfs FUSE hugetlbfs pipefs procfs securityfs sockfs sysfs tmpfs systemd udev Kmscon binfmt_misc
Wrapper libraries	C standard library glibc uClibc Bionic libhybris dietlibc EGLIBC klibc musl Newlib libcgroup libdrm libalsa libevdev libusb liburing

Components

Process and I/O schedulers:
Brain Fuck Scheduler
Completely Fair Scheduler (CFS)
Earliest eligible virtual deadline first (EEVDF)
Noop scheduler
O(n) scheduler
O(1) scheduler
SCHED_DEADLINE
SCHED_FIFO
SCHED_RR

Variants

Mainline
- Linux kernel
- Linux-libre
High-performance computing
Real-time computing
- RTLinux
- RTAI
- Xenomai
- PREEMPT_RT
MMU-less
- μClinux
- PSXLinux

Virtualization	Hypervisor KVM Xen OS-level virtualization Linux-VServer Lguest LXC OpenVZ Other L4Linux ELinOS User-mode Linux MkLinux coLinux

Adoption

Range of use	Desktop Embedded Gaming Thin client: LTSP Server: LAMP LYME-LYCE Devices
Adopters	List of Linux adopters

Linux portal
Free and open-source software portal
Category

Linux distributions

Android

LineageOS	/e/ CalyxOS CrDroid iodéOS Replicant

SteamOS (3.0 onwards)

SystemRescue

Debian

Ubuntu	Official: Edubuntu Kubuntu Lubuntu Ubuntu Budgie Ubuntu Cinnamon Ubuntu Kylin Ubuntu MATE Ubuntu Studio Ubuntu Unity Xubuntu Derivatives: BackBox Bodhi Linux elementary OS Emmabuntüs KDE neon Freespire Linux Lite Linux Mint LXLE Linux Nova OS Peppermint OS Pop! OS Trisquel Ubuntu Touch Uruk Wubuntu Zorin OS

Fedora

CentOS Stream	AlmaLinux EulerOS Miracle Linux Oracle Linux Red Hat Enterprise Linux Rocky Linux

Gentoo

Calculate Linux

ChromiumOS (ChromeOS)

openSUSE
- SUSE Linux Enterprise
  - Open Enterprise Server
- GeckoLinux

Other

Discontinued

Android	CyanogenMod Cherry OS DivestOS MIUI PixelExperience Remix OS
Arch	ArchLabs Antergos Chakra
Debian	Ubuntu: Asturix Black Lab Linux Cub Linux Gobuntu gOS Linux Caixa Mágica LinuxTLE Pinguy OS Sabily Ubuntu GNOME Other derivatives: BackTrack Corel Linux CrunchBang Linux DoudouLinux Dreamlinux Feather Linux gNewSense HandyLinux Libranet Musix GNU+Linux Parsix SteamOS (1.0–2.0) Sunwah Linux
Gentoo	Container Linux Sabayon Linux xB Machine
Red Hat, Fedora	BLAG Linux and GNU CentOS ClearOS Linpus Linux Korora Linux for PlayStation 2 Scientific Linux Red Hat Linux Rocks Cluster Distribution Think Blue Linux Turbolinux Vine Linux Yellow Dog Linux
Slackware	Absolute Linux BioSLAX Damn Vulnerable Linux KateOS Kongoni NimbleX Platypux TopologiLinux VectorLinux
SUSE	SUSE Studio Express

v t e Linux
Linux kernel	History Linus's law Linux-libre Booting process Kernel oops Tux more…
Controversies	Criticism of Linux Criticism of desktop Linux GNU/Linux naming controversy Tanenbaum–Torvalds debate SCO and Linux
Distributions	General comparison Distributions list Netbook-specific comparison Distributions that run from RAM Lightweight Security-focused operating system Package manager Package format List of software package managers
Organizations	LinuxChix Linux Counter Linux Documentation Project Linux Foundation Linux Mark Institute Linux User Group (LUG)
Adoption	Adopters Desktop Embedded Gaming Mobile Range of use Linux malware
Media	DistroWatch Free Software Magazine Full Circle Hacker Public Radio Linux.com Linux Format Linux Gazette Linux Journal Linux Magazine LinuxUser Ubuntu User Linux Outlaws Linux Voice LugRadio LWN.net Phoronix Revolution OS The Code
Professional related certifications	CompTIA Linux+ Linux Foundation Red Hat Ubuntu
Linux portal Free and open-source software portal Category

v t e Contributors to the Linux operating system
Kernel	H. Peter Anvin Jens Axboe Andries Brouwer Rémy Card Alan Cox Matthew Garrett Michael Kerrisk Shuah Khan Con Kolivas Greg Kroah-Hartman Benson Leung Robert Love David S. Miller Ingo Molnár Andrew Morton Keith Packard Hans Reiser Rusty Russell Sage Sharp Linus Torvalds Theodore Ts'o Stephen Tweedie Sage Weil Harald Welte Chris Wright
GNU	Richard Stallman Michael Tiemann
Distributions	Solar Designer Gaël Duval Marc Ewing Benjamin Mako Hill Peter MacDonald Ian Murdock Daniel Robbins Jane Silber Mark Shuttleworth Patrick Volkerding Bob Young
Other developers	Timothee Besset Matthias Ettrich Olivier Fourdan Mark Galassi Jim Gettys Ryan C. Gordon Harald Hoyer Miguel de Icaza Havoc Pennington Lennart Poettering Kay Sievers Dave Taylor Jeff Waugh
Advocates	Valerie Aurora Donna Benjamin Ken Coar Mary Gardiner Jon Hall Federico Heinz Bradley M. Kuhn Bruce Perens Eric S. Raymond
Others	Pia Andrews Jono Bacon Keith Bergelt Pamela Jones Allison Randal Karen Sandler Dave Sifry Luis Villa
Linux portal

Internet Hall of Fame

Pioneers

2012	Paul Baran Vint Cerf Danny Cohen Steve Crocker Donald Davies Elizabeth J. Feinler Charles Herzfeld Robert Kahn Peter T. Kirstein Leonard Kleinrock John Klensin Jon Postel Louis Pouzin Lawrence Roberts
2013	David Clark David Farber Howard Frank Kanchana Kanchanasut J. C. R. Licklider Bob Metcalfe Jun Murai Kees Neggers Nii Quaynor Glenn Ricart Robert Taylor Stephen Wolff Werner Zorn
2014	Douglas Engelbart Susan Estrada Frank Heart Dennis Jennings Rolf Nordhagen Radia Perlman

Global connectors

2012	Randy Bush Kilnam Chon Al Gore Nancy Hafkin Geoff Huston Brewster Kahle Daniel Karrenberg Toru Takahashi Tan Tin Wee
2013	Karen Banks Gihan Dias Anriette Esterhuysen Steve Goldstein Teus Hagen Ida Holz Qiheng Hu Haruhisa Ishida Barry Leiner George Sadowsky
2014	Dai Davies Demi Getschko Masaki Hirabaru Erik Huizer Steve Huter Abhaya Induruwa Dorcas Muthoni Mahabir Pun Srinivasan Ramani Michael Roberts Ben Segal Douglas Van Houweling
2017	Nabil Bukhalid Ira Fuchs Shigeki Goto Mike Jensen Ermanno Pietrosemoli Tadao Takahashi Florencio Utreras Wu Jianping

Innovators

2012	Mitchell Baker Tim Berners-Lee Robert Cailliau Van Jacobson Lawrence Landweber Paul Mockapetris Craig Newmark Ray Tomlinson Linus Torvalds Phil Zimmermann
2013	Marc Andreessen John Perry Barlow François Flückiger Stephen Kent Anne-Marie Eklund Löwinder Henning Schulzrinne Richard Stallman Aaron Swartz Jimmy Wales
2014	Eric Allman Eric Bina Karlheinz Brandenburg John Cioffi Hualin Qian Paul Vixie
2017	Jaap Akkerhuis Yvonne Marie Andres Alan Emtage Ed Krol Tracy LaQuey Parker Craig Partridge

Inductees since 2019

2019	Adiel Akplogan Kimberly Claffy Douglas Comer Elise Gerich Larry Irving Dan Lynch Jean Armour Polly José Soriano Michael Stanton [pt] Klaas Wierenga Suguru Yamaguchi [ja]
2021	Carlos Afonso Rob Blokzijl Hans-Werner Braun [de] Frode Greisen Jan Gruntorad Saul Hahn Kim Hubbard Rafael Ibarra Xing Li Yngvar Lundh Dan Kaminsky DaeYoung Kim Kenneth Klingenstein Alejandro Pisanty Yakov Rekhter Philip Smith Pål Spilling Liane Tarouco [pt] Virginia Travers George Varghese Lixia Zhang
2023	Abhay Bhushan Laura Breeden Ivan Moura Campos Steve Cisler Peter Eckersley Hartmut Richard Glaser Simon S. Lam William Schrader Guy de Téramond

Authority control databases
International	ISNI VIAF FAST WorldCat
National	Germany United States France BnF data Japan Italy Czech Republic Netherlands Norway Korea Poland Israel Finland Catalonia
Academics	Association for Computing Machinery Scopus DBLP
Artists	MusicBrainz
Other	IdRef