[ Thanks to Linux User &
Developer magazine for this link. ]
“In the early Nineties, computer science students such as Linus
were increasingly taught using toy operating systems built around
microkernels, such as Minix, a creation of Professor Andrew
Tannenbaum at VU University Amsterdam. Minix had been created to
allow students to study and improve a real operating system that
was nonetheless not so overly complicated that it could not be
understood over the course of a few semesters’ worth of study.
Unlike Andrew Tannenbaum, Linus did not subscribe to the same
philosophy that drove much of the popularity of Minix, but he did
use it, since it was essentially the only practical open source
alternative available. This was another reason why Linux came
about, as a means to have a more conventional UNIX-like operating
system whose source code was freely available and which supported
the kinds of hardware available to students (rather than the
higher-end kind typically required for traditional UNIX).”