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Born
Linus Benedict Torvalds was born on December 28, 1969, in Helsinki, Finland. His parents, Anna and Nils were both journalists and attended the University of Helsinki, where Linus would eventually attend university at later in his life. -
First Computer
Linus in 1981 got his first exposure with computers when his grandfather, Leo Toerngvist (professor in Statistics at University of Helsinki) bought a Commodore Vic 20. This is when Linus had his earliest exposure with computers and programming as he began to create programs with the BASIC programming language and later developed his skill in writing programs with assembly languages for the computer. -
First Personal Computer
Linus Torvalds saved his money to buy his own personal computer, a Sinclair QL. This computer was on the cutting-edge with being one of the first 32-bit computers for consumers and drew interest from Torvalds. -
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Attended University of Helsinki
Linus Torvalds enrolled into the University of Helsinki majoring in Computer Science and where Torvalds would graduate with a Master of Science in Computer Science with his thesis: "Linux a Portable Operating System" -
Served Military service for Finland
After the first year at the University of Helsinki, Torvalds decided to serve his mandatory military service for Finland, which lasted 11 months. He held the rank of Second Lieutenant in the Finish army. -
First class in the C programming language
Early in his years at the University of Helsinki, Torvalds took his first class in the C programming language, which would eventually be the foundation of writing the core of the Linux kernel with. -
Resumed Studies at University of Helsinki
After 11 months in the service, Torvalds promptly resumed his academic career back at the University of Helsinki. -
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Frustration with MINIX and Development of New Operating System
With Torvalds' frustration with obtaining UNIX for his personal IBM compatible PC, MINIX was the closest operating system that he could get to UNIX with some licensing issues. He began development on his own operating system in response in April of 1991 and released his initial work on August 25 of the same year to the MINIX newsgroup which would eventually become the kernel to Linux. -
Second Personal computer
Torvalds purchased a computer that was an Intel 80386 clone of an IBM compatible PC loaded with MS-DOS. The computer had a lot of power with its 33Mhz Intel 386 Processor and 4MB of memory, but Torvalds was disappointed at the optimization of MS-DOS for the powerful hardware. This forced Linus to search for a version of UNIX that could be loaded onto his new PC, but it was very expensive to get a system with it. This would let Torvalds make the decision to make his own operating system instead. -
First Official Release of Linux (Version 0.02)
After the initial announcements that Linus was working on a new operating system from scratch, Torvalds completed his first version of Linux 0.01 on September 17, 1991, but kept working on it to release to the public on October 5, 1991 with GNU C compiler, and bash shell capabilities. The most important feature of the OS was in its licensing, which was compliant with the GNU General Public License that promoted development of the project for hackers around the world. -
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Move to California & Employment at Transmeta
In 1996, Linus Torvalds accepted a position at Transmeta, a start-up company in Silicon Valley and continued to oversee kernel development for Linux. Torvalds left the company in 2003 to focus on the Linux kernel with a consortium of tech companies (OSDL) with IBM, HP, RedHat and others to promote the kernel. -
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Involvement with 86open
Torvalds worked on a project to create a consenus on the binary file format for unix and similar operating systems with the x86 PC architecture and worked with other technology figures until 1999 to accomplish thier goals. -
Stock Options in RedHat and VA Linux
Torvalds was presented stock options with the companies Red Hat and VA Linux which went public and gave Torvalds shares valued at 20 million dollars for his work in developing the Linux kernel. -
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Work with Open Source Development Labs
Torvalds moved on to work with Open Source Development Labs to devote his time purely on the Linux project backed by tech giants with IBM and HP as well as many others until it merged with the Free Standards Group to become the Linux Foundation. -
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The Linux Foundation
After the Open Source Development Labs merged with Free Standards, it created the Linux foundation where Torvalds is continuing his involvement with Linux full time. -
IEEE Computer Pioneer Award
Torvalds was named as the recipient of the IEEE Computer Society's Computer Pioneer Award which recognizes efforts that have contributed to the development of the computer industry with his efforts in the Linux project.
