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, 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 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 inte ...
.
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 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
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 learni ...
." 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, 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, 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 a ...
. 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
''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 ...
: 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 cartoon character", noting that this made him "half Nobel Prize-winning chemist and half blanket-carrying cartoon character".
Torvalds attended the
University of Helsinki from 1988 to 1996, graduating with a master's degree in
computer science from the NODES research group. His academic career was interrupted after his first year of study when he joined the
Finnish Navy 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 Coas ...
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
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 sup ...
. 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. 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
Ultrix (officially all-caps ULTRIX) is the brand name of Digital Equipment Corporation's (DEC) discontinued native Unix operating systems for the PDP-11, VAX, MicroVAX and DECstations.
History
The initial development of Unix occurred on DEC equi ...
. His MSc thesis was titled ''
Linux: A Portable Operating System''.
His interest in computers began with a
VIC-20 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 i ...
, 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 ve ...
(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 b ...
). 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)" 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 transistors[IBM 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 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.