Area Enterance: LINUX | HOSTING

Linus Torvalds


Linus Benedict Torvalds was born on December 28, 1969 in Helsinki, Finland. Linus Torvalds is a Finnish software engineer best known for having initiated the development of the Linux kernel and git revision control system. He later became the chief architect of the Linux kernel, and now acts as the project's coordinator.

Linus TorvaldsLinus Torvalds attended the University of Helsinki from 1988 to 1996, graduating with a master's degree in computer science from NODES research group. His academic career was interrupted after his first year of study when he joined the Finnish Army, selecting the 11-month officer training program to fulfill the mandatory military service of Finland. In the army he holds the rank of second lieutenant, with the role of a ballistic calculation officer. In 1990, Linus Torvalds resumed his university studies, and was exposed to UNIX for the first time, in the form of a DEC MicroVAX running ULTRIX. His M.Sc. thesis was titled Linux: A Portable Operating System.

Linus Torvalds' interest in computers began with a Commodore VIC-20. After the VIC-20 he purchased a Sinclair QL which he modified extensively, especially its operating system. He programmed an assembly language and a text editor for the QL, as well as a few games. Linus Torvalds is known to have written a Pac-Man clone named Cool Man. On January 5, 1991 he purchased an Intel 80386-based IBM PC and spent a month playing the game Prince of Persia before receiving his MINIX copy which in turn enabled him to begin his work on Linux.

From 1997 to 1999 Linus Torvalds was involved in 86open helping to choose the standard binary format for Linux and Unix.

Red Hat and VA Linux, both leading developers of Linux-based software, presented Torvalds with stock options in gratitude for his creation. In 1999, both companies went public and Torvalds' net worth shot up to roughly $20 million.

His personal mascot is a penguin nicknamed Tux, which has been widely adopted by the Linux community as the mascot of the Linux kernel.

About 2% of the Linux kernel as of 2006 was written by Linus Torvalds himself. Since Linux has had thousands of contributors, such a percentage represents a significant personal contribution to the overall amount of code. Linus Torvalds remains the ultimate authority on what new code is incorporated into the standard Linux kernel.

Linus Torvalds owns the "Linux" trademark, and monitors use of it chiefly through the Linux Mark Institute. (wikipedia)


Tags:
learning inux, linux unix, linux courses, unix training, using linux