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Linus Torvalds is Born
Linus Benedict Torvalds is born on December 28th, 1969 in Helsinki, Finland. He is the son of journalists Anna and Nils Torvalds and grandson of statistician Leo Tornqvist and poet Ole Torvalds. -
Interested from an early age...
From an early age, Linus was interested in computers. At the age of 10 he began to dabble in computer programming on his grandfather's Commodore VIC-20. This early experimentation and fascination with tech would lay the groundwork for his college years. -
Cool Man
After the VIC-20 he worked with his family's Sinclair QL. He modified the operating system on this computer extensively. Because it was so hard to get software in Finland, Linus wrote his own assembler and editor for the QL, and even a few games; one of these was a Pac-Man clone named "Cool Man". -
College years
Torvalds enters into the University of Helsinki in 1988 with dreams of working in the world of computer software. However his studies would soon be interrupted. -
Academic Interruptions
His first year at university was interrupted when he joined the Finnish Army Uusimaa brigade, in the summer of 1989. To fulfill the mandatory millitary service of Finland, Linus chose an 11-month officer training program. -
Second Lieutenant
Torvalds eventually held the rank of Second Lieutenant, with the role of a ballistic calculation officer. While conscripted, Torvalds picked up Andrew Tanenbaum's book, "Operating Systems: Design and Implementation", in which he describes MINIX, a stripped down version of Unix. This would set the gears turning for when Linus returned to his studies. -
Back to school
Linus resumed his studies in computer software engineering in 1990. -
Stallman's speech
Linus Torvalds already had ideas about creating a new kind of operating system, but these plans started manifesting when a fellow student took him to a talk by free-software guru Richard Stallman. This was Torvalds' first encounter with the GNU GPL, and he would later use Stallman's GPLv2 for his Linux Kernel -
The Dawn of a New Age
The first Linux prototypes were introduced later in 1991, and Version 1.0 was released on March 14, 1994. -
An award of galactic proportions
In 1996, the asteroid 9793 Torvalds was named after him, in honor of his achievements. -
Graduation and a Move
Torvalds graduated with a master's degree in computer science from NODES research group. Shortly thereafter, Torvalds accepted a position at a computer company in California, where he would work from 1997 to 2003. -
MIT Honors
In 1999, he was named by the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the world's top 100 innovators under age 35. -
The Linux Foundation
In 2003 Linus moved to the Open Source Development Labs, which has since merged with the Free Standards Group to become the Linux Foundation, under which he continues to work. -
Two Percent
As of 2006, approximately only two percent of the Linux kernel was written by Torvalds himself. This is because thousands have contributed to the Linux kernel, so despite the appearance, Torvalds' two percent is one of the largest contributions. -
Today...
Currently, the Linux Foundation sponsors Torvalds so he can work full-time on improving Linux
