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The Origins of Linux—Linus Torvalds

Computer History Museum · 658.8K views · 2008-04-28 · 1:25:13

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Overview

Linus Torvalds tells the story of Linux in a 2001 talk at the Computer History Museum, from writing code as a graduate student in Helsinki in the early 1990s to becoming an icon of open source. It covers the project's origins, its growth, and his views on licensing and kernel design.

On Hacker News

HN points to it as the long first-person account of Linux history, including Linus on the GPL's role and on microkernels.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2008–2014

Topics

Linux & open-source ecosystemsTech pioneers & interviewsOperating systems & kernels
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linus torvaldslinuxopen sourcegplkernel design

What people said

jackchristopher · 2009-11 · Strong recommendation

Pertaining to the editor wars. There's a great (long) video about Linus and Linux history from 2001. Watch the whole thing if you can—after the 40 minute mark is especially worth it: [VIDEO] 55 minutes in someone asks him, "What editor and mail reader do you use?" He smirks, "The editor is microemacs, the best editor ever made. And vi and GNU Emacs suck, suck."

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mechanical_fish · 2008-06 · Recommendation

[LINK] Even better, a video of Linus Torvalds speaking on the history of Linux at the Computer Museum in 2001: [VIDEO]

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mqsiuser · 2014-08 · Reference

Linus is just super clever: "just a hobby" (start small), picked GPL (getting Linux in place of the vaporware-HURD, though he doesn't like the over-ideology) and he totally owns this discussion: "monolithic v.s. micro-kernel" is likewise famous as his initial announcement. Reading this and you can sense that especially he has a lot of good points to make. And he was 22 at this time and already joking about flame-wars (turning them into fests). He already was so knowlegable&smart (certainly you become wiser over time but that's a heck oft a good foundation he shows there). And certainly so much hard work (and anger "f__k you Nvidia"). Kudos to his incredible dedication and sensoring for what is (likely to turn out) right! He has revisited these topics later calling micro-kernels "mental (academic) masturbation" [1] (so been much stricter and confirming himself to be spot on). [1] The origins of Linux: [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Computer History Museum, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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