"If your Linux-based computer could talk, today it would be
expressing a warm Happy Mother's Day greeting to its virtual
mother, Finnish born Linus Benedict Torvalds.
"Torvalds was born on December 28th, 1969 in Helsinki. His
parents, Nils and Anna Torvalds, are journalists and his
grandfather Ole Torvalds was a prominent journalist and poet, who
received an honorary doctorate in 1978 for his work.
"Despite such a literary heritage Linus was drawn towards the
8-bit computers that were popular during his youth. Like many young
people in the 1980's, he began with a Commodore VIC-20 and next
purchased a Sinclair QL. Unlike most, however, he modified the QL
extensively, especially its operating system!
"In 1988 Torvalds attended the University of Helsinki studying
Computer Science. On January 2nd, 1991, he purchased an Intel
80386-based IBM PC. Initially he used this to play Prince of Persia
but soon received a copy of MINIX which changed his life, and ours
too."
