1991: Linus Torvalds, a 21-year-old university student from Finland, writes a post to a user group asking for feedback on a little project he’s working on. He’s built a simple kernel for a Unix-like operating system.

Linux (pronunced: /ˈlɪnʊks/, lin-uks) is an operating system that was initially created as a hobby by a young student, Linus Torvalds, at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Linus had an interest in Minix, a small UNIX system, and decided to develop a system that exceeded the Minix standards. He began his work in 1991 when he released version 0.02 and worked steadily until 1994 when version 1.0 of the Linux Kernel was released.

Many people considered Linus Torvalds as the world's greatest computer programmer/hacker. That's why it's no surprise that most of his loyal fans have praised him and have told stories about his amazing accomplishments .For those of you who want to know more about Torvalds, perhaps you may want to read these mythical and rather humorous facts about the man...

A recent attack piece against Richard Stallman was written by Linus Torvalds on the eve of Obama’s election.

Black and white by Linus Torvalds

Linus begins with this:

If you are Bill Gates or Linus Torvalds, it is totally understandable to have an ego the size of the biggest planet. The two has been known to make comments that will forever keep the geek pride alive. If you want proof, just read the following quotes from Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds, and be the judge of who has a bigger ego between them.

Most years, Linus Torvalds comes to Australia. He apparently likes the place, so the creator of the Linux kernel makes his way to the Australian national Linux conference in January. Torvalds is an excellent subject for an interview; he never evades a question, not even if he has a single word to offer as reply. And despite claiming to have a big ego, he is indeed very approachable.

Linus Torvalds tells the story of how he went from writing code as a graduate student in Helsinki in the early 1990s to becoming an icon for open source software by the end of the decade.

Transmeta, once a sparkling startup that set out to beat Intel and AMD in mobile computing, announced that it will be acquired by Novafora. The company’s most famous employee, Linux inventor Linus Torvalds, kept the buzz and rumor mill about the company throughout its stealth phase alive and guaranteed a flashy technology announcement in early 2000.

Linus Torvalds, the creator of the [Linux kernel], tells the story of how he went from writing code as a graduate student in Helsinki in the early 1990s to becoming an icon for open source software by the end of the decade.