Lecture 4:Linus Torvalds

Linus Torvalds:

background
-born December 28, 1969 in Helsinki, Finland
-a Finnishsoftware engineer
-best known for having initiated the development of the Linux kernel
-the chief architect of the Linux kernel


Early life
-his family belongs to the Swedish-speaking minority (5.5%) of Finland's population
-Torvalds was named after Linus Pauling, the American Nobel Prize-winning chemist
-1988 to 1996: attended the University of Helsinki from
-graduating with a master's degree in computer science from NODES research group
-his academic career was interrupted when he joined the Finnish Army


His Interests
-interest in computers began with a Commodore VIC-20
-especially its operating system
-programmed an assembly language and a text editor for the QL
-programmed a few games
-known to have written a Pac-Man clone named Cool Man


Later life
-running introductory computer laboratory exercises for students
- instructed the course attendants
- 1997 to 1999 he was involved in 86open helping to choose the standard binary format for Linux and Unix

source from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds
( asscessed in 22,Oct 2009)