The Chronicler's Web (TCW)

by DAN CALLOWAY
Published 13 March 2010

HELSINKI, FINLAND – Linus Torvalds is the originator of the UNIX-like operating system, Linux. This development came about in 1991 when Linus wrote the first kernel for this operating system. Since that time, many contributors have helped to shape the future of Linux by writing upgrades to the kernel through the GNU Project, started by Richard Stallman in 1983. The GNU Public License was created in 1989 and Stallman established the Free Software Foundation in 1985.

Linus Torvalds was born on December 28, 1969 in Helsinki, Finland. He was the son of journalists, Anna and Nils Torvalds both of whom were campus radicals at the University of Helsinki in the 1960s.

Torvalds attended the University of Helsinki from 1988 – 1996 where he received his masters degree in computer science from NODES research group. Linus interrupted his academic career by joining the Finnish Army in 1989 where he underwent an 11-month officer training program to fulfill his mandatory military requirement of Finland.

Linus Torvalds’ interest in computers began with the Commodore VIC-20. Later on, he purchased a Sinclair QL, which he modified extensively, especially the operating system. Linus programmed an Assembly Language and text editor for the QL. After receiving his first copy of MINIX, an operating system developed by Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Linus turned his attention to developing his own operating system known as Linux.

In 1996, Linus went to work for a California-based company called Transmeta where he worked from 1997 to 2003. Following his employment with Transmeta, Linus moved to the Open Source Development Labs, which later merged with the Free Standards Group, which later became the Linux Foundation where he continues to work today.

Development of the Linux kernel continues today. Torvalds continues to direct the development of the kernel. Stallman heads the Free Software Foundation, which in turn supports the GNU components. Finally, individuals and corporations develop third-party non-GNU components. These third-party components comprise a vast body of work and may include both kernel modules and user applications and libraries. Linux vendors and communities combine and distribute the kernel, GNU components, and non-GNU components, with additional package management software in the form of Linux distributions.

The latest stable version of the Linux kernel is 2.6.33 released on February 24, 2010. The latest unstable version is 2.6.34-rc-1 released five days ago on March 8, 2010.

The most popular distribution of Linux today is Ubuntu Linux, a Debian Linux derivative, developed and distributed by a South African company, Canonical Ltd, Inc. with the latest version being Ubuntu 9.10 desktop (Karmic Koala).

Although predominantly known for its servers, Linux remains active in the desktop market. In 2008, it was estimated that over 60% of the world’s servers ran Linux with only 1 – 2% of the desktop computers running Linux.

Other popular Linux distributions still in use today are: Red Hat, SuSE, Mandrake, and Debian Linux.