Linux

Linux (pronounced ⁱ/ˈlɪnəks/ LIN-əks or, less frequently, /ˈlaɪnəks/ LYN-əks) is a Unix-like and mostly POSIX-compliant computer operating system (OS) assembled under the model of free and open-source software development and distribution. The defining component of Linux is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on 5 October 1991 by Linus Torvalds. The Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to describe the operating system, which has led to some controversy.

Linux was originally developed as a free operating system for personal computers based on the Intel x86 architecture, but has since been ported to more computer hardware platforms than any other operating system. Thanks to its dominance on smartphones, Android, which is built on top of the Linux kernel, has the largest installed base of all general-purpose operating systems. Linux, in its original form, is also the leading operating system on servers and other big iron systems such as mainframe computers and virtually all fastest supercomputers, but is used on only around 1.6% of desktop computers with Linux-based Chrome OS taking about 5% of the overall and nearly 20% of the sub-$300 notebook sales. Linux also runs on embedded systems, which are devices whose operating system is typically built into the firmware and is highly tailored to the system; this includes smartphones and tablet computers running Android and other Linux derivatives,TiVo and similar DVR devices, network routers, facility automation controls, televisions,video game consoles, and smartwatches.

Linus Torvalds

Linus Benedict Torvalds (/ˈlaɪnəsˈtɔːrvɔːldz/;Swedish: [ˈliːn.ɵs ˈtuːr.valds]; born December 28, 1969) is a Finnish-Americansoftware engineer, who is the creator of the Linux kernel and for a long time, principal developer; that became the kernel for operating systems (and many distributions of each), such as GNU and years later Android and Chrome OS. He also created the distributed revision control system git. He was honored, along with Shinya Yamanaka, 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". He is also the recipient of the 2014 IEEE Computer Society Computer Pioneer Award.

Biography

Early years

Torvalds was born in Helsinki, Finland. He is the son of journalists Anna and Nils Torvalds, and the grandson of statistician Leo Törnqvist and of poet Ole Torvalds. Both of his parents were campus radicals at the University of Helsinki in the 1960s. His family belongs to the Swedish-speaking minority. Torvalds was named after Linus Pauling, the Nobel Prize–winning American chemist, although in the book Rebel Code Linux and the Open Source Revolution, Torvalds is quoted as saying, "I think I was named equally for Linus the Peanuts cartoon character", noting that this makes him half "Nobel Prize–winning chemist" and half "blanket-carrying cartoon character".