A hobby in Helsinki that runs the world
Linux was born in Finland. In 1991, Linus Torvalds, a 21-year-old computer science student at the University of Helsinki, started writing an operating system kernel for his new PC. It was published on a Finnish university server, named by a Finnish system administrator, and shared freely. Every distribution on this site grew from that project.
- 28 December 1969Helsinki
Linus Torvalds is born
Linus Benedict Torvalds is born in Helsinki into Finland’s Swedish-speaking minority. He later studies computer science at the University of Helsinki.
- Early 1991Helsinki
A new 386 PC and a borrowed idea
Torvalds buys a PC with an Intel 80386 processor and runs MINIX, a small teaching Unix written by Andrew Tanenbaum. MINIX was 16-bit and restricted, so he starts writing his own terminal emulator and disk drivers to use the new 32-bit chip — code that slowly turns into a kernel.
- 25 August 1991Helsinki
“Just a hobby”
Torvalds posts to the comp.os.minix newsgroup that he is building a free operating system, “just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu”, for 386 PCs, and asks what features people would like.
- September 1991Espoo
Named by a Finnish server
Torvalds wanted to call it Freax (free + freak + x). Ari Lemmke, a volunteer administrator of the FTP server ftp.funet.fi at Helsinki University of Technology, disliked the name and put the files in a directory called linux instead. The name stuck.
- 17 September 1991ftp.funet.fi
Linux 0.01 is released
The first public version goes up on FUNET, the Finnish University and Research Network. It already ran the GNU Bash shell and GCC compiler.
- Early 1992
Free, for good: the GPL
With version 0.12, Torvalds announces the move to the GNU General Public License. Anyone can use, change, and share Linux, as long as they share their changes too. That decision made the collaboration that followed possible.
- January 1992
The Tanenbaum–Torvalds debate
Andrew Tanenbaum posts “Linux is obsolete”, arguing that its monolithic kernel design was a step backwards. The public argument with Torvalds becomes one of the most famous debates in computing, and Linux keeps growing anyway.
- 1993
- March 1994
Linux 1.0
Version 1.0 is released, the first version considered ready for production use.
- 1996
Tux the penguin
Linux gets a mascot. Torvalds liked penguins (he has told the story of being nipped by a little penguin at a zoo in Canberra), and Larry Ewing drew the now-famous Tux. James Hughes suggested the name: “Torvalds’ UniX”, and short for tuxedo.
- 1997
From Helsinki to the world
Torvalds completes his master’s thesis at the University of Helsinki, “Linux: A Portable Operating System”, and moves to California. Linux development is now truly global.
- 2005
Git, a second gift
When the kernel loses access to its version control tool, Torvalds writes Git in a few weeks. It is now the standard way software is built worldwide.
- Today
Everywhere
Linux runs Android phones, most cloud servers, and every one of the world’s 500 fastest supercomputers. On the desktop it lives on through hundreds of distributions. We track 58 of them in our live rankings.
Why we say “made where Linux began”
distro.watch tracks the distributions that grew out of Torvalds’ hobby: which ones people read about, when they release, and how long they are supported. The tagline in our header is a small thank-you to the place where it started.
Linux history: common questions
Where was Linux created?
In Helsinki, Finland. Linus Torvalds wrote the first versions in 1991 while studying at the University of Helsinki, and version 0.01 was published on ftp.funet.fi, a Finnish university FTP server.
Is Linux Finnish?
Linux was born in Finland: Linus Torvalds, a Finnish student, started it in Helsinki in 1991. Today it is a global project, developed by thousands of contributors and companies worldwide and stewarded by the Linux Foundation in the United States.
Who created Linux?
Linus Torvalds, a Finnish computer science student, created the Linux kernel in 1991. Thousands of developers and companies now contribute to it, and Torvalds still coordinates kernel releases.
When was Linux first released?
Torvalds announced the project on 25 August 1991, and the first public version, Linux 0.01, was released on 17 September 1991. Version 1.0 followed in March 1994.
Why is it called Linux?
Torvalds wanted to call it Freax. Ari Lemmke, who ran the Finnish FTP server hosting the files, named the directory “linux” (from Linus plus Unix), and the name stuck.
Why is the Linux mascot a penguin?
Torvalds liked penguins and has joked about being nipped by one at a zoo in Canberra, Australia. Larry Ewing drew Tux in 1996; the name comes from “Torvalds’ UniX” and the penguin’s tuxedo look.
Is Linux an operating system or a kernel?
Strictly, Linux is the kernel: the core that talks to the hardware. A Linux distribution combines it with tools such as the GNU utilities, a desktop, and a package manager to make a complete operating system.