Linus Torvalds, whose biography is presented in the article, was born in a family of journalists in Finland, where he grew up. At school, he was considered a nerd because of his hobbies and appearance. Short and frail, the youngest child in the class, ugly (by his own admission), Linus was very passionate about technology. Communication with peers was of little interest to him. Torvalds Linus studied well in physics and mathematics, sometimes to the detriment of humanitarian subjects. In the photo below - the school that Linus attended.
Introducing the world of computers
The true guru and unquestioned authority for him was Leo Waldemar Turnkvist, maternal grandfather. He worked at the University of Helsinki, where he was a professor of statistics. It was this man who discovered the world of computers for his grandson. At the age of 11, Torvalds already mastered the Commodore VIC-20, while studying Basic programming, since this computer was no longer fit.
After some time, Torvalds was tired of the monotonous input of programs. Linus Torvalds (his photo is presented above) began to buy all the computer magazines and books that appeared in the country. In one magazine, Linus found a program for Morse code. It was not created in BASIC, like all the others that he had encountered before, but was just a set of numbers. They could be translated manually into machine language, written down with a chain of ones and zeros, understandable for a computer.
Torvalds Linus realized that Basic is a part of a computer, and then he began to study its other aspects. When grandfather died, he plunged headlong into working with the computer, which Linus inherited.
Linus family
We already talked about grandfather and his role in the fate of our hero. As for other members of the family, Torvalds's parents still work in the field of journalism. Niels Torvalds, father, is a radio and television journalist. Anna Torvalds, mother of Linus, is a literary editor. Sister Sarah runs a translation agency that focuses primarily on translation of news reports. Linus Torvalds himself, whose biography is in no way connected with journalism, is skeptical of this profession.
Adolescence
In his youthful years, Linus, unlike many of his peers, was not attracted to either hockey with football, or flirting with girls. Torvalds was completely absorbed in working with computers.
Then Linus Torvalds went to university. After studying in it for a year, he was drafted into the army, where he improved his health and pumped up muscles in physical training classes. After demobilization, Torvalds returned to university. It was this educational institution that gave him an impetus for programming lessons already at a serious level. The whole future life of Torvalds is associated with the development of a world-famous operating system.
Even at the age of 17, in 1987, Linus bought a new product, Sinclair QL, to replace the outdated VIC-20. This computer had 128 KB of memory. He worked on an eight-MHz processor from Motorola. The price of the computer at that time was about $ 2, 000. It was produced by the company under the auspices of C. Sinclair.
Interest in operating systems
Almost immediately, Linus became interested in various operating systems. In order to establish the floppy control acquired by Torvalds, he needed to write his own device driver. Then he found punctures in the operating system. Linus discovered that what was happening in reality did not match what was promised in the documentation.
Torvalds' next step was the disassembly of Q-DOS, which was installed on his own computer. Linus was disappointed to learn that it was impossible to change anything in this system, since it was written in ROM.
Linus first wrote several games on the new computer. He borrowed the ideas of most of them from an old computer. The installed OS, however, had many flaws. For example, despite its multitasking, it did not have a memory protection function. The system could freeze at any moment. In addition, after the development of Sinclair QL, K. Sinclair ceased to improve his models, as well as support existing ones.
Linux History
Linus, returning from the army, became acquainted with the Unix system. Together with 32 other students, Torvalds decided to choose the course "C and Unix". Since this system just appeared at that time at the University of Helsinki, the teacher had to study the new OS with the students.
Linus came up with the idea of creating his own operating system book by Andrew Tatenbaum, a professor from Amsterdam. Torvalds claims that she turned his whole life upside down. In this book (Design and Implementation of Operating Systems), the author describes Minix - the training OS created by him for teaching Unix. Naturally, Torvalds immediately decided to install it on his computer. The problem was that the Sinclair QL was not designed to install such systems. Only in January 1991, having acquired a new computer (now PC), Torvalds managed to install Minix on it.
Having studied the advantages and disadvantages of this operating system, Linus decided to bring it to mind. It was a training OS, trimmed and distorted. Minix became more sophisticated after installing the old Linus programs and patches by Bruce Evans, the famous hacker from Australia.
Creating a terminal emulation package
It all started with the fact that the Minix remote communication terminal was implemented very poorly. And that was the function that Linus used most often. With her help, he contacted the university computer via modem communications. Torvalds decided to create his own program for communication, taking as a basis not Minix, but the hardware level of the computer itself. Thanks to this, he simultaneously studied the computer on the 386th processor, as well as its OS. Torvalds was very proud that he was able to improve the OS. But attempts to present their merits to others did not lead to anything. It was difficult to explain to people that sometimes it is possible to find complex deep processes under external unpretentiousness.
Developing a file system driver and drive
So, Linux began by creating a terminal emulation package. After that, one innovation followed another. Torvalds needed to download and write files to a computer at the university. For this it was necessary to write them to disk. Thinking, Linus decided to create a file system driver and a disk drive. At the same time, the system that he planned to develop had to be compatible with Minix. Creating it, he consulted with Minix users through a usenet conference. From what serious questions the student asked of Minix and Unix architecture, one could guess that he was planning to develop his own OS.
Work on the first version of Linux
Once Linus suddenly discovered that the programs written by him, overgrown with many additional functions and represent a working version of the OS. The work on creating Linux in the early stages was monotonous. Torvalds, one after another, examined the various system calls underlying Unix. Based on them, he tried to create his own OS blocks with the functions he needed. It was quite tiring and not very stimulating to continue the work. Linus had to do this because it was still impossible to verify the system’s functionality. Having processed about 25 different system calls, Torvalds moved on to another tactic. Now he began to try to run the OS shell. If errors occurred, he developed the necessary system calls. Progress in system design was obvious. The shell began to work stably since the end of August 1991. This was the first big success of Linus.
Linux 0.01
So, the first version of Linux appeared in the public domain on September 17, 1991. Then Torvalds decided what to call this system. Initially, he planned to give her the name Freax (the word freaks means “fans”, and “x” is the ending from Unix). Even then, he called this Linux system, but considered immodest to use his name as an official name. Ari Lemke, a teacher at the Helsinki University of Technology, created a directory on the university’s FTP server. This is where Linus placed his system. But the word Freax Ari did not like it, so he decided to rename the directory where it was located in pub / OS / Linux. Torvalds did not particularly mind, so the name gradually became fixed.
The OS version posted on the site was numbered 0.01. Thus, it was emphasized that the system is still imperfect and needs serious revision. Therefore, Torvalds did not publicly demonstrate his OS. He only sent letters to several well-known hackers, in which the server address was indicated, where it could be downloaded. The initial version did not allow to do almost anything other than its launch and listing of source codes.
System improvement
The creator's interest in the system ran out by November 1991. Perhaps its further improvement would cease. However, chance intervened. Linus, finalizing once again Minix, ruined the oversight of the important parts of the section of this OS. The question was whether to reinstall Minix or install Linux as the main OS. Torvalds decided to choose his system.
Linux by the beginning of 1992 made a big leap forward. Several functions were added to the system that had no analogues in Minix. This, for example, swapping to the hard disk in the case of working with large programs. Linus also introduced into his system the functions that users requested in their letters. Thus, Linus Torvalds significantly improved its OS.
"I am making a free operating system"
The creator of the system declined offers of remuneration. He only asked users to send postcards from the cities in which they lived. Linus was interested to know where his system was used. Postcards began to pour in an avalanche - from Japan, New Zealand, the USA, and the Netherlands. Relatives finally noticed that Linus gained great popularity due to his computer activities. The state of Linus Torvalds today, presumably, is very impressive. However, he takes money calmly. The pursuit of profit was never in his character.
Distribution Terms
At first, the conditions for OS distribution were developed only in general terms. Linux was free, but could not be put up for sale. If the user decided to make improvements or changes to the system, he had to create the source code, making these improvements public domain. Instead of copyright, Linus Torvalds currently uses the General Public License.
The advent of the graphical interface, Linux 1.0
In the spring of 1992, a hacker O. Zbrowski adapted X Windows for this OS. Linux thus had a graphical interface. After that, Linus Torvalds decided that the system was almost ready and released version 0.95. However, this was a mistake. As soon as he began to introduce network functions in his OS, he realized that it was necessary to significantly modify the system. Only 2 years later was version 1.0 released in March 1994.
Torvalds's personal mascot is the Tux Penguin. Linus Torvalds (Just for Fun) talks about the history of the emblem in his book. In it, he writes that he chose this animal because once a penguin pecked him at the zoo.
