1981 in the suburbs of Helsinki, a blonde eleven-year-old boy with splinters, Linus Torvalds, receives a gift from his grandfather. It's a Commodore Vic-20, an ideal game in the opinion of Professor Torvalds, of the Statistics department at the local university.
FINLAND IS A COUNTRY with cold all year round, if we exclude the coolness of some summer months. Little Linus enjoys the warmth of his room. There, in a library that catches the entire wall, from floor to ceiling, there is his beloved companion: Ivanois, the Forest of the Forest, Tarzan, the Island of the Treasures. Next to them, on a shell, a model of the Wasa, the Swedish sailing boat sank on 1628's maiden voyage.
All those sails, masts, ropes, detailed painting of the hull took him months to create. Every detail had to be taken care of so that Wasa could take the form it deserved. But all this until Grandpa's gift...
Tο ιστιοφόρο και o Tαρζάν φωτίζονταν τώρα από το έντονο μπλε φως της οθόνης και άκουγαν το μονότονο χτύπημα των σκούρων καφέ πλήκτρων του Vic-21. O μικρός Linus έπρεπε να καταφέρει νέα επιτεύγματα. Μέσα σε λίγες μέρες φώναξε τη μικρή του αδελφούλα, τη Σάρα, και της έδειξε την οθόνη. O Commodore επαναλάμβανε ασταμάτητα τη φράση "Sara is the best!". Ένα απλό πρόγραμμα go-to two lines in Basic was his first success and his first pride. Next came a video game, written in machine language, in which a submarine navigates a tunnel. Its captain had to avoid a huge fish blocking his way. As the game progressed the tunnel got narrower and narrower and the difficulty increased. Endless hours passed before Linus perfected it, saved it to a tape, and proudly took it to school to play with his friends.
"I was very lucky to start from such a simple computer," Linus Torvalds will say at some point.
"It gave me the advantage of understanding his parts in depth, which kids today don't have," he adds.
"Today's machines are extremely complex. What child sitting in front of a Pentium could ever understand in depth how it is made", he wonders, and one will hardly disagree with his reflection.
WITHOUT TELEPHONE...
Ten years after his grandfather's gift, Linus Torvalds bought his third computer. A 386 pc was the 1991 ideal for a student at the University of Helsinki.
This machine would begin writing its own operating system. At that time he still lived with his family. The blue light of the screen continuously illuminated his student room until dawn. Linus was constantly working and stubborn. The better he did, his own were unable to understand what he was doing.
For them, working on Linux accompanied by hours of online discussions and searches simply meant...
"how nobody could call us on the phone" says Sara Torvalds. Even today the little sister and the rest of the family cannot understand the glory that came to the blond child with the broken teeth.
Characteristic are Sarah's words:
"It is still tragically difficult for me to realize that to the rest of the world Linus is not just Linus but a true genius."
Sarah's brother, however, did not seek this characterization nor did he chase any significant distinction when 1991 began his effort. He was just in love. The object of his craving was called Unix, and Linus Torvalds wanted to be able to run his home at his 386.
PROPERTIES AND RELATIONSHIPS...
The operating system created by Dennis Pizzi and Kenneth Thompson at Bell Labs in the 60s was done for exactly the same reasons as Linus Torvalds.
"Our intention was to create an enjoyable computing environment for ourselves, and our hope was that others would enjoy it as well," Picci said in his acceptance speech at the Taring Prize.
Linus Torvalds' words about his own functional, years later, look so much like those of his father, Unix:
"I probably fell into the amazing case completely by chance," he admits.
"Ήθελα ένα διαφορετικό λειτουργικό σύστημα και έτυχε πολύς ακόμη κόσμος να θέλει το ίδιο" λέει ο Linus Torvalds. Tο 1991 o φοιτητής της scienceof computers he was taught Unix and had access to workstations running Unix, or rather a lighter version of it, Minix.
He was really fascinated by the system and its capabilities and when he got home he fell into the "disappointment" of MS-DOS. But running a $5.000 system like Unix that was built for a $10.000 workstation was probably impossible. In 1991, Unix could not run on a PC. But Linus Torvalds didn't know what to say, he can't.
He began to make his own version of Minix for his 386. He was also looking for help in a newsgroup for Minix.
"Γεια σας κάτοικοι της δικτυοχώρας! Δουλεύω σε ένα project και ενδιαφέρομαι για τον καθιερωμένο ορισμό του posix. Μπορεί κανείς να με κατευθύνει σε κάποια address που να περιέχει τους τελευταίους κανόνες του;"
This was the first message left 3 in July at 1991 at newsgroup comp.os.minix torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.fi, as was his address at that time.
He had already written a few initial lines of code and the first results were encouraging. After only two months of hard work he had reached the version 0.1.
He was ready for another historic message:
"Hey Minix users out there. I'm building a (free) OS. It's just a hobby, it won't be anything big and professional. It works on 386 AT compatibles. I've been building it since April and it's slowly, slowly starting to format. It will I would appreciate any feedback on what you all like and don't like about Minix, as my OS is somewhat similar to it... Any suggestions are welcome.
PS: Yes, it does not include any Minix code. It probably doesn't support anything other than AT hard drives."
THE NAME THAT GIVES.
At that time the Linus Torvalds είχε δημιουργήσει το kernel, την καρδιά του λειτουργικού συστήματος που δουλεύει απευθείας πάνω στον επεξεργαστή. Tο είχε ονομάσει "Freax", ένα λογοπαίγνιο με τις λέξεις free και Unix, παραπέμποντας και στο "χακερίστικο" freaking. Στο διαχειριστή όμως του ftp τόπου δεν άρεσε η σχέση με το hacking, και έτσι ο Linus Torvalds βάφτισε το δικτυακό τόπο του Linux χρησιμοποιώντας το όνομά του.
"I didn't want to use that name because I felt it was a bit selfish," he recalls. "
But the name stuck and today I'm rather happy that "Freax" didn't prevail.
ONLY FOR MEN...
In October 1991, Linus Torvalds released version 0.2, the first working version. He invited programmers working on Unix to "download" his software and use it on their PCs.
"Are you nostalgic for the good old days of Minix 1.1, when men were men and wrote their own drivers for their devices?" Linus challenged the newsgroup subscribers.
"Are you missing a cool project and dying to get your hands dirty with an operating system that you can configure for your needs?" he continued.
"Come and get it if you're man enough!", his message concluded. Of course, in order to protect the commercial exploitation of his operating system from any trickery he hastened to license it under a general public license of the Free Software Foundation.
Then came the 0.95 version, showing that the first official one will be coming soon. But Linus had learned to be patient and persistent since he was assembling the "Wassa" sailboat. The bugs had to go away and the software had to be "cleaned". Months passed and version 1.0 was delayed. Instead a 0.99 version came to increase the suspense. But now Linus Torvalds was not alone.
Eίχε τη μεγαλύτερη εταιρεία προγραμματισμού στον κόσμο, αφού στηριζόταν σε όλο το παγκόσμιο χωριό. H ομορφιά του Linux ήταν πως μπορούσε να κάνει ό,τι και το Unix, αλλά το έκανε σε φθηνά μηχανήματα. Tο σπουδαιότερο όμως ήταν ότι όποιος ήθελε μπορούσε να κατεβάσει τις 50.000 πρώτες γραμμές κώδικα και να τις διορθώσει, να τις τεστάρει, να τις εμπλουτίσει, να τις προχωρήσει...
H THE COMMUNITY IS FOUNDED.
H first surprise for 22 then Finnish came when it received the first messages from users who ran the Linux on their computer. "O source code was what got people excited," says Linus Torvalds.
"The people who used it were the ones who wanted to play with it," he continues. After a few weeks, Linus Torvalds had collected over 100 e-mails by users of its operating system.
"Post from that I stopped being surprised!" he will say.
AWhat happened next is really impressive and is a definition of virtual world co-operation: O Linus Torvalds distributed it kernel and its source code Linux, while developers from around the world were working on it.
Quickly, the creator of the operating system began to receive "patch" with corrections and suggestions from around the globe. Programmers exchanged lines of code, they reported bugs and malfunctions and brought it kernel on various computing platforms beyond 386.
In a short time, the Linux became the functional one he could run into PC, Mac, Female friend, Sun, Silicon Graphics and whatever else existed.
O space of education immediately embraced the new functional. Tuniversities have begun to run and teach Linux. They supported this server and very quickly companies started to imitate the phenomenon. H stability and the potential offered by it Linux, coupled with its versatility and versatility, have led to the selection of those known from around the world. Tthe operating system began to acquire an installed base and dozens of companies began to think about their possible involvement. They were released the first commercial distributions, with present and free source code. In essence, companies have the right to sell only packaging and support.
Kbut his success is so great that the Red Hat, a major distribution, is today one of the biggest expectations Wall Street, after its first hours of listing on the stock market rose 300%.
FINLAND IS SUCCESSFUL.
As was normal after such a success, Linus Torvalds left behind Finland's cold nights, lakes and forests, picked up his Wasa, his books and other favorite items, and carefully placed them in black boxes.
He waited until his wife, Touve, gave birth to their daughter, took them together and left for the sun in California. When some say that he was crazy who did not try to give birth to his daughter in the United States Linus Torvalds responds disarmingly:
"We never thought about it. Medicine in Finland is so much better."
The $20.000 salary at Transmeta, in the Santa Clara area, however, was an important incentive for him to leave Helsinki. After all, from Silicon Valley, you can probably "manage" a movement better, because that's what Linux seems to be. His current house is completely similar to the one in Helsinki, at least internally Scandinavian order, large libraries with the Tarzan of the science fiction era.
In Linus Torvalds' office, next to the daughter's room, a DEC Alpha. On it a hacker sticker paraphrasing the Intel commercial: "Linux Inside". Although he rarely plays games anymore, he does occasionally have fun with the famous XBill.
It's a game where the player has to stop a caricature of Bill Gates from flooding the machines with Windows. If the player loses, the machines Phil has managed to turn into toasters... "Your computer is fried!" closes the game.
Microsoft has indeed begun to worry about the extraordinary spread of Linux, studying its defense against a free operating system. Some of its internal reports that have been made public testify to this. The main issue is that Linus Torvalds has at his disposal the largest programming team which no Microsoft can pay. His decision to distribute his system for free shields him from any competition. But mostly it keeps him clean.
"Yes, I had some suggestions that could corrupt me, but even if I wanted to, there's nothing I can do about it!"
So he enjoys the appreciation and respect of the Linux community that accepts him as a spiritual and natural leader.
POC HISTORY FOR A PROGRAMMER.
At a conference for Unix users recently held at Anaheim, the opening speech was by James Gosling, father of Java. When it was time for Linus Torvalds to talk and he went up to the microphone, the conference just stopped and moved to an open space to fit the crowd.
"It is very gratifying under certain circumstances to receive the appreciation of the world," he confesses.
"In my day-to-day life, fortunately, there are no new girls coming to throw their panties at me or go on hysterics like that. I think my wife would be very upset if it started happening," he concludes.
Linus Torvalds really keeps a low-profile profile.
He often explains how small his invention is compared to what all other Linux developers have done. "I'm a good programmer," he admits, "but it's absolutely crazy to claim that you can be the best in the world at something."
(from Ram, issue 165)
