Tux is a penguin character and the official brand character of the Linux kernel. Originally created as an entry to a

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, w ...

logo competition, Tux is the most commonly used icon for Linux, although different

Linux distributions 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 ...

depict Tux in various styles. The character is used in many other Linux programs and as a general symbol of Linux.

History

Origins

The concept of the

brand character being a penguin came from

Linus Torvalds 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 distributions and other operating systems such as Android. He also ...

, the creator of Linux. According to Jeff Ayers, Linus Torvalds had a "fixation for flightless, fat waterfowl" and Torvalds claims to have contracted "penguinitis" after being nibbled by a little penguin on a visit to the

National Zoo & Aquarium The National Zoo and Aquarium is a privately owned zoo and aquarium in the Australian capital city of Canberra. It is located in Yarralumla, Australian Capital Territory, Yarralumla at the western end of Lake Burley Griffin, next to Scrivener D ...

, Canberra, Australia, joking that the disease "makes you stay awake at nights just thinking about penguins and feeling great love towards them". Linus spoke at the 1994 AUUG Conference (5-9 Sept, Melbourne) as part of a "World Tour" to Belgium, Australia, Singapore and elsewhere, mentioning in Linux Journal he was bitten by a penguin at Canberra Zoo, not at Phillip Island, Victoria, by a (shy) wild penguin. In an interview Linus commented on the penguin bite: At Canberra zoo a sign said in 2009 that staff believed the "original Tux" was still resident in the penguin enclosure. Apart from this, in the book Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary, there is an excerpt dedicated to how Tux became the mascot of the Linux OS. In the book, Linus says he doesn’t remember how Tux became the mascot, but believes the zoo story, which, according to his wife, Tove Torvalds, is probably right. In 1996 after an initial design suggestion made by Alan Cox, use of an image Torvalds found on an FTP site, showing a penguin

figurine A figurine (a diminutive form of the word ''figure'') or statuette is a small, three-dimensional sculpture that represents a human, deity or animal, or, in practice, a pair or small group of them. Figurines have been made in many media, with clay ...

depicted in a similar style to the ''

Creature Comforts ''Creature Comforts'' is a British adult stop-motion comedy mockumentary franchise originating in a 1989 British humorous animated short film of the same name. The film matched animated zoo animals with a soundtrack of people talking about th ...

'' characters created by

Nick Park Nicholas Wulstan Park (born 6 December 1958) is a British animator who created ''Wallace and Gromit'', ''Creature Comforts'', ''Chicken Run'', ''Shaun the Sheep'', and '' Early Man''. Park has been nominated for an Academy Award a total of ...

, the concept for Tux was further refined by Torvalds on the

Linux kernel mailing list The Linux kernel mailing list (LKML) is the main electronic mailing list for Linux kernel development, where the majority of the announcements, discussions, debates, and flame wars over the kernel take place. Many other mailing lists exist to di ...

. Torvalds was looking for something fun and sympathetic to associate with Linux, and he felt that a slightly fat penguin sitting down after having eaten a great meal perfectly fit the bill. The final and original design was a submission for a Linux

logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wo ...

contest by Larry Ewing using the first publicly released version (0.54) of GIMP, a

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

graphics package. It was released by him under the following condition: Since Tux won none of the three competitions that were held Tux is formally known as the Linux ''brand character'' and not the ''logo''. The first person to call the penguin "Tux" was James Hughes, who said that it stood for "(T)orvalds (U)ni(X)". However, ''tux'' is also an abbreviation of tuxedo, the outfit which bears resemblance in appearance to a penguin.

Tuz 2009

Tuz, a Tasmanian devil wearing a fake penguin beak, was the brand character of the 2009 linux.conf.au conference. It has been chosen by Linus Torvalds as the logo for version 2.6.29 of the Linux kernel to support the effort to save the Tasmanian devil species from

extinction Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

due to the

devil facial tumour disease Devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) is an aggressive non-viral clonally transmissible cancer which affects Tasmanian devils, a marsupial native to Australia. DFTD was first described in 1996. In the subsequent decade the disease ravaged Tasmania's ...

. The image was designed by Andrew McGown and recreated as an SVG using

Inkscape Inkscape is a free and open-source vector graphics editor used to create vector images, primarily in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format. Other formats can be imported and exported. Inkscape can render primitive vector shapes (e.g. rec ...

by Josh Bush, and released under the

CC BY-SA A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyric ...

license.

Linux for Workgroups 2013

For the Linux 3.11-rc1 release, Linus Torvalds changed the code name from "Unicycling Gorilla" to "Linux for Workgroups" and modified the logo that some systems display when booting to depict a Tux holding a flag with a symbol that is reminiscent of the logo of

Windows for Workgroups 3.11 Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was Released-to-manufacturing, released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windows 3.0. Like its predecessors, the Windows 3.1 series ran as a Shell (computing), shell ...

, which was released in 1993.Linux for Workgroups
The H Open, 15 July 2013.

Uses and reception

In some Linux distributions, for example Gentoo, Tux greets the user during booting with multi-processor systems displaying multiple images of Tux, one for each processor core.

Video games

Tux has taken on a role in the Linux community similar to that which

Mario is a character created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. He is the title character of the ''Mario'' franchise and the mascot of Japanese video game company Nintendo. Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his cre ...

holds in the Nintendo community. The character has been featured in open-source look-alikes of other mainstream games, such as ''

Tux Racer ''Tux Racer'' is a 2000 open-source winter sports racing video game starring the Linux mascot, Tux the penguin. It was originally developed by Jasmin Patry as a computer graphics project at the University of Waterloo. Later on, Patry and the n ...

'', '' Extreme Tux Racer'', ''

SuperTux ''SuperTux'' is a free and open-source two-dimensional platform video game published under the GNU General Public License (GPL). The game was inspired by Nintendo's '' Super Mario Bros.'' series; instead of Mario, the hero in the game is Tux, ...

'', ''

SuperTuxKart ''SuperTuxKart'' (''STK'') is a free and open-source kart racing game, distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 3. It features mascots of various open-source projects. ''SuperTuxKart'' is cross-platform, runn ...

'', and ''

Tux Paint ''Tux Paint'' is a Free and open-source software, free and open source raster graphics editor (a program for creating and processing raster graphics) geared towards young children. The project was started in 2002 by Bill Kendrick who continues t ...

''.

Female Tux versions in video games

Some games that star Tux also include explicitly female penguin characters, allowing the players to play as one of those characters instead of Tux. One such female penguin is Tux's friend "Gown". Gown is variously depicted as being a pink version of Tux (''XTux'') or as having a somewhat less fat appearance and wearing items of clothing such as a red and white short skirt and a hair bow (e.g. ''TuxKart'' and ''A Quest for Herring''). In ''SuperTux'' and ''SuperTuxKart'', there is a different female penguin called "Penny" who is purple and white (''SuperTuxKart'' once had Gown and still has a map called "Gown's Bow"). In the arcade game '' Tux 2'' there is a female penguin called "Trixi", and in ''

FreeCiv ''Freeciv'' is a single- and multiplayer turn-based strategy game for workstations and personal computers inspired by the proprietary ''Sid Meier's Civilization'' series. It is available for most desktop computer operating systems and available ...

'' the female leader name for the Antarctican civilization is "Tuxette".

Tux in popular culture

* In a

Froot Loops Froot Loops is a brand of sweetened, fruit-flavored breakfast cereal produced by Kellogg's. The cereal is sold in many different countries. The cereal pieces are ring-shaped (hence "loops") and come in a variety of bright colors and fruit ...

advertisement, Tux appears as a squeaky toy, the "secret weapon" to distract a pack of dogs pulling a sled containing the villain. * In the comics ''

Hellblazer ''John Constantine, Hellblazer'' is an American contemporary horror comic-book series published by DC Comics since January 1988, and subsequently by its Vertigo imprint since March 1993, when the imprint was introduced. Its central character is ...

'', in issue 234 "Joyride, part 1", a Tux plush toy makes an appearance, set on the side of the road where a little girl was killed in a hit-and-run accident. * Tux appeared as a character during one arc in the

webcomic Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on a website or mobile app. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books. Webcomics can be c ...

User Friendly Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a soft ...

''.

Other uses

* In 1999, Corel Linux Deluxe included a free Linux Penguin (Tux) toy. * Since around 2001, there was a Linux-based web server named TUX, which was deprecated around 2006. * In 2006, Tux had an uncredited use in the '' Al Gore's Penguin Army'' video. * In 2007, Tux was used by the German cutlery producer WMF in the ''Sealion'' set for children. * In 2008, Tux has also been made as a virtual pet under the name Tux Droid by Kysoh for Linux and Windows, has many features including reading tweets from

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

and checking the weather. * Since 2009, TuxGuitar, a free guitar tab reading/editing program, features Tux holding a guitar as its brand character. * In 2010, a prototype of a Tux

monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, hist ...

with wings was presented in the Russian city of

Tyumen Tyumen ( ; rus, Тюмень, p=tʲʉˈmʲenʲ, a=Ru-Tyumen.ogg) is the administrative center and largest city of Tyumen Oblast, Russia. It is situated just east of the Ural Mountains, along the Tura River. Fueled by the Russian oil and gas in ...

by the local Linux user community. * The avatar of Electronica artist Ephixa is based on Tux (around 2011). * In April 2016, Tux was adapted to a designer toy called a Gwin and was distributed by October Toys. The toy was redesigned by different artists and sold in short collectible runs through the October Toys website and other collectable vinyl toy sites. October Toys has since ceased operations.

Gallery

File:Tux.svg, Vectorized from the pixel image source File:NewTux.svg, Gloss look Tux File:Tux Enhanced.svg, High quality 3d-look variant File:TuxFlat.svg, Modern flat look File:Tux Mono.svg, Modern flat look in

monochrome A monochrome or monochromatic image, object or palette is composed of one color (or values of one color). Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale (typically digital) or black-and-white (typically analog). In physics, monochrom ...

File:Tux Classic flat look v1.1.svg, Classic flat look: Emblem File:Tux Classic flat look 3D.svg, Classic flat look: 3D File:Tux-simple.svg, Simple vector variant File:Crystal 128 penguin.png, Tux

Crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macro ...

1st revision File:TUX G2.svg, Tux

2nd revision File:Other-linux-logo.svg, A Tux icon File:Slackware-mascot.svg,

Slackware Slackware is a Linux distribution created by Patrick Volkerding in 1993. Originally based on Softlanding Linux System, Slackware has been the basis for many other Linux distributions, most notably the first versions of SUSE Linux distributio ...

version of Tux File:Tuxguitar.png, Tux from TuxGuitar File:Pax tux.png, PaX version of Tux File:SuperTux-Milestone1 9.png, Tux as the player character protagonist of ''

'' File:Tux-wmf-gabel-vorne.jpg, Tux on the fork of the cutlery set ''Sealion'' for children by WMF (2007). File:Eight copies of Tux on multi-core processor.png, Eight Tux displayed, representing eight processor cores running the Gentoo Linux installation CD. File:Birds of feather-Wikimedia-GNUnify2013 17.jpg, A Tux

rangoli Rangoli is an art form that originates from in the Indian subcontinent, in which patterns are created on the floor or a tabletop using materials such as powdered lime stone, red ochre, dry rice flour, coloured sand, quartz powder, flower petal ...

by students at GNUnify'13,

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

References

External links

{{Linux Linux Bird mascots Computing mascots Fictional penguins Free software culture and documents Linus Torvalds Linux kernel