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Linus Benedict Torvalds ( , ; born 28 December 1969) is a Finnish software engineer who is the creator and, historically, the lead developer of the
Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ope ...
, used by
Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...
s and other operating systems such as Android. He also created the
distributed version control In software development, distributed version control (also known as distributed revision control) is a form of version control in which the complete codebase, including its full history, is mirrored on every developer's computer. Compared to centr ...
system
Git Git () is a distributed version control system: tracking changes in any set of files, usually used for coordinating work among programmers collaboratively developing source code during software development. Its goals include speed, data in ...
. He was honored, along with
Shinya Yamanaka is a Japanese stem cell researcher and a Nobel Prize laureate. He serves as the director of Center for iPS Cell (induced Pluripotent Stem Cell) Research and Application and a professor at the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences at Kyo ...
, with the 2012
Millennium Technology Prize The Millennium Technology Prize ( fi, Millennium-teknologiapalkinto) is one of the world's largest technology prizes. It is awarded once every two years by Technology Academy Finland, an independent foundation established by Finnish industries, ...
by the
Technology Academy Finland Technology Academy Finland (formerly Millennium Prize Foundation and Finnish Technology Award Foundation) is an independent foundation established in 2003 by Finnish industry and the Government of Finland in partnership. The foundation's objective ...
"in recognition of his creation of a new
open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
for
computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...
s leading to the widely used Linux
kernel Kernel may refer to: Computing * Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems * Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution * Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming * Kernel method, in machine learn ...
." He is also the recipient of the 2014 IEEE Computer Society Computer Pioneer Award and the 2018
IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award The IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award is a Technical Field Award of the IEEE given for outstanding contributions to consumer electronics technology. It is named in honor of Masaru Ibuka, co-founder and honorary chairman of Sony Corpor ...
.


Life and career


Early years

Torvalds was born in
Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...
, Finland, the son of journalists Anna and
Nils Torvalds Nils Ole Hilmer Torvalds (born 7 August 1945) is a Finnish politician who has been a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 2012. He is a member of the Swedish People's Party of Finland, part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for ...
, the grandson of statistician Leo Törnqvist and of poet
Ole Torvalds Ole Torvalds (4 August 1916 – 8 February 1995) was a Finnish-Swedish journalist and poet. He was the father of journalist-politician Nils Torvalds and grandfather of software engineer Linus Torvalds famous for the Linux kernel. His full name w ...
, and the great-grandson of journalist and soldier
Toivo Karanko Toivo Tuomas Savolainen, later Karanko (20 September 1891 Nurmes - 15 May 1969 Helsinki) was a Finnish Jäger captain and a journalist.Suomen jääkärien elämäkerrasto 1938Suomen jääkärien elämäkerrasto 1975 Studies Savolainen enrolled as ...
. His parents were campus radicals at the
University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...
in the 1960s. His family belongs to the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. He was named after
Linus Pauling Linus Carl Pauling (; February 28, 1901August 19, 1994) was an American chemist, biochemist, chemical engineer, peace activist, author, and educator. He published more than 1,200 papers and books, of which about 850 dealt with scientific top ...
, the Nobel Prize-winning American chemist, although in the book ''
Rebel Code ''Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution'' is a technology book by Glyn Moody published in 2001. It describes the evolution and significance of the free software and open source movements with many interviews with notable hackers. In a ...
: Linux and the Open Source Revolution'', he is quoted as saying, "I think I was named equally for
Linus Linus, a male given name, is the Latin form of the Greek name ''Linos''. It's a common given name in Sweden. The origin of the name is unknown although the name appears in antiquity both as a musician who taught Apollo and as a son of Apollo who di ...
the
Peanuts ''Peanuts'' is a print syndication, syndicated daily strip, daily and Sunday strip, Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz. The strip's original run extended from 1950 to 2000, continuing in reruns afterward. ' ...
cartoon character", noting that this made him "half Nobel Prize-winning chemist and half blanket-carrying cartoon character". Torvalds attended the
University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...
from 1988 to 1996, graduating with a master's degree in
computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...
from the NODES research group. His academic career was interrupted after his first year of study when he joined the
Finnish Navy The Finnish Navy ( fi, Merivoimat, sv, Marinen) is one of the branches of the Finnish Defence Forces. The navy employs 2,300 people and about 4,300 conscripts are trained each year. Finnish Navy vessels are given the ship prefix "FNS", short f ...
Nyland Brigade The Nyland Brigade, officially Nylands Brigad (NylBr) in Swedish, fi, Uudenmaan Prikaati (UudPr), is a brigade-level marine-type unit of the Finnish Navy stationed in Dragsvik in Raseborg in the province of Uusimaa. The Brigade trains Coastal ...
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 Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank. Australia The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army until ...
, with the role of an
artillery observer An artillery observer, artillery spotter or forward observer (FO) is responsible for directing artillery and mortar fire onto a target. It may be a ''forward air controller'' (FAC) for close air support (CAS) and spotter for naval gunfire su ...
. He bought computer science professor
Andrew Tanenbaum Andrew Stuart Tanenbaum (born March 16, 1944), sometimes referred to by the handle ast, is an American-Dutch computer scientist and professor emeritus of computer science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands. He is the author ...
's book '' Operating Systems: Design and Implementation'', in which Tanenbaum describes MINIX, an educational stripped-down version of
Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
. In 1990, Torvalds resumed his university studies, and was exposed to Unix for the first time in the form of a DEC
MicroVAX The MicroVAX is a discontinued family of low-cost minicomputers developed and manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). The first model, the MicroVAX I, was introduced in 1983.(announced October 1983) They used processors that implemen ...
running ULTRIX. His MSc thesis was titled ''
Linux Linux ( or ) 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 as a Linux distribution, which ...
: A Portable Operating System''. His interest in computers began with a
VIC-20 The VIC-20 (known as the VC-20 in Germany and the VIC-1001 in Japan) is an 8-bit home computer that was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the ...
at the age of 11 in 1981. He started programming for it in
BASIC BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...
, then later by directly accessing the
6502 The MOS Technology 6502 (typically pronounced "sixty-five-oh-two" or "six-five-oh-two") William Mensch and the moderator both pronounce the 6502 microprocessor as ''"sixty-five-oh-two"''. is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by a small te ...
CPU in
machine code In computer programming, machine code is any low-level programming language, consisting of machine language instructions, which are used to control a computer's central processing unit (CPU). Each instruction causes the CPU to perform a very ...
(he did not utilize
assembly language In computer programming, assembly language (or assembler language, or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as Assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence be ...
). He then purchased a
Sinclair QL The Sinclair QL (for ''Quantum Leap'') is a personal computer launched by Sinclair Research in 1984, as an upper-end counterpart to the ZX Spectrum. The QL was aimed at the serious home user and professional and executive users markets from small ...
, 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)" for the QL, and a few games. He wrote a '' Pac-Man'' clone, ''Cool Man''. On 5 January 1991 he purchased an
Intel 80386 The Intel 386, originally released as 80386 and later renamed i386, is a 32-bit microprocessor introduced in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistorsIBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...
before receiving his MINIX copy, which in turn enabled him to begin work on Linux.


Linux

The first Linux prototypes were publicly released in late 1991. Version 1.0 was released on 14 March 1994. Torvalds first encountered the
GNU Project The GNU Project () is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and computing devices by collaborat ...
in 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 Richard Matthew Stallman (; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to ...
's speech.