Linus T tells The Reg how Linux solo act became a global jam session
(2026/02/18)
- Reference: 1771407007
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/02/18/linus_torvalds_and_friends/
- Source link:
If you know anything about Linux's history, you'll remember it all started with Linus Torvalds posting to the Minix Usenet group on August 25, 1991, that he was working on "a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones." We know that the "hobby" operating system today is Linux, and except for PCs and Macs, it pretty much runs the world.
Did you ever wonder, though, how it went from being one person's project to being a group effort? I knew most of the story because I'd been using Linux since 1993. But I thought I'd ask Linus, and some of the early Linux developers.
The year of the European Union Linux desktop may finally arrive [1]READ MORE
It all began when Torvalds and his friend Lars Wirzenius met at the University of Helsinki. They began tinkering with PCs; computer games (Prince of Persia); social networking, which in those days was Usenet; and Unix.
In the spring and summer of 1991, Torvalds hacked on a simple Unix‑like kernel for his 386 PC. He wanted to learn about operating systems, dial into the local Usenet server, and build a more capable operating system than Minix, an academic Unix clone.
Torvalds told The Register : "The 'good old days' really aren't as rose-colored as some people like to think they were." After a few months of work, he released the first public snapshot, Linux 0.02. on October 5, 1991, on an FTP server with about 10,000 lines of code. Linux made its first appearance thanks to Torvalds' friend, Ari Lemmke, who set up the first servers at nic.funet.fi in Finland.
[2]
At this point, Torvalds wanted to call Linux "Freax," a mashup of "free," "freak," and "x" to evoke a Unix‑like system. When he uploaded the code to the FUNET FTP server, though, Lemmke disliked "Freax" and named the project directory as "Linux" instead, and that name stuck.
[3]
[4]
The audience was anyone who happened to read that Usenet thread and felt like playing with a half‑finished kernel. At the time, Torvalds wrote: "Are you without a nice project and just dying to cut your teeth on an OS you can try to modify for your needs?" The answer was yes.
At this point, there was no easy way to install Linux. [5]Wirzenius recalled in 2023 : "People were interested in trying out this new thing, so Linus needed to provide an installation method and instructions. Since he only had one PC, he came to visit to install it on mine. Since his computer had been used to develop Linux, which had simply grown on top of his Minix installation, it had never actually been installed before. Thus, mine was the first PC where Linux was ever installed. While this was happening, I was taking a nap, and I recommend this method of installing Linux: napping, while Linus does the hard work."
[6]
Torvalds, however, quipped that Wirzenius was an "early victim of my efforts."
At this stage, Torvalds cross‑compiled the kernel and its few user programs under Minix, and development decisions were whatever he wanted to try next. For example, adding a virtual memory system, getting Bash and GCC to run, or fixing a race in the buffer cache so the kernel could finally recompile itself. The barrier to entry was technical; you needed a 386 and comfort with compilers and patches, but socially, the project was still effectively a one‑man show that others only tested and tinkered with at the margins.
Windows 10's demise nears, but Linux is forever [7]READ MORE
Once 0.02 was available, a small but energetic group of volunteers began downloading, testing, tweaking, and returning patches to Torvalds via email and Usenet, turning Linux into a genuinely collaborative project within its first year. The turning point was that Torvalds not only accepted outside changes but actively encouraged them, treating his kernel as a commons that others could extend.
One of the first contributors – and still a Linux maintainer today – was Theodore "Ted" Ts'o. He created the first Linux mirror in North America. Ts'o told The Register : "I started playing with Linux sometime in September 1991. At the time, there was only a 64 kbps link between Finland and the US. Fortunately, Linux sources were a lot smaller back then – the sources for Linux 0.11 was only 93K. Still, we had to share this European interconnect with everyone else using the internet at the time, and so download times could suffer.
"Since MIT was one of the founding members of the New England Academic and Research network (NEARnet), it had multiple princely 10 megabit microwave links to Harvard, Boston University, and to BBN, where it connected to the rest of the internet. (Most universities at the time had only 1.5 megabit T1 lines.) So I set up an FTP server using my VAXstation 3100 on my desk, which was called tsx-11.mit.edu."
[8]
That's where this author stepped in. I'd already been using Unix for more than a decade. I'd seen the Usenet posts, and I was interested. But it was only after Ts'o put up his FTP server that I was able to give it a try. Needless to say, I liked it.
More importantly, though, for its development, many developers on this side of the Atlantic were able to start working with it. Ts'o's first contribution to the kernel, for example, was the imalloc.c library in Linux 0.11, the first general-purpose kernel memory allocator for Linux.
Meanwhile, in Europe, other early developers who are still working on Linux came aboard. Dirk Hohndel told us: "Initially, you'd send Linus patches, he'd look at them, but then he'd throw them away and implement the thing that you sent him from scratch the way he wanted it done. Thankfully, he stopped with that because, yeah, that doesn't scale."
[9]Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native
[10]Just because Linus Torvalds vibe codes doesn't mean it's a good idea
[11]Another open source project dies of neglect, leaving thousands scrambling
[12]Canonical CEO says no to IPO in current volatile market
No, it doesn't. Torvalds has gotten much better. Today, he rarely codes and sees his job as more of a manager than a developer.
At the time, though, he really did have his hands all over the code. There was only one problem. His 386 didn't have the horsepower he needed, and he couldn't afford a bigger, better PC. That's when his friend and fellow early Linux kernel developer H. Peter Anvin stepped up.
Torvalds recalled: "We ran what was essentially a very early 'GoFundMe' to upgrade my first machine: collected checks in the US and sent the result to me back when international banking fees were ridiculous, and that was how I upgraded my original 386 to a 486DX/2."
The Reg asked Anvin how that worked, and he said: "Linus was still making monthly payments on his computer, and we were all pretty upset about that for obvious reasons. It wasn't really a question of 'If something was going to happen,' but how? In those days, transferring money between countries was expensive. We're talking $100, $150 off the top, which, for a bunch of students, would pretty much limit what you could afford, and we didn't know each other. We didn't even know what the other looked like! How could we establish trust? So I had people send checks to my university mailbox. That way, there was no need to chase me down because the last thing any grad student wanted was for the department chair to be told, 'This student in your department has been stealing money.'"
It worked! "I collected checks for about a month, then I took them to the bank, and I covered the wiring fee," and Torvalds shortly had a brand spanking new 486DX2. OK, so your watch, never mind your phone, is more powerful these days, but back then that was a real computer.
The US government wants developers to stop using C and C++ [13]READ MORE
This crowdsourced PC also helped foster trust among early Linux community members. It was this that enabled Linux to grow from a one-man show to a group effort.
Hohndel also recalled that with this new high-end hardware, "in 1992, we were joking that maybe in a few years we'd be able to build a 'real' X terminal based on PC hardware, which would be much cheaper than the expensive dedicated X terminals (like from Hummingbird). And not one of us talking about this thought that [it] was actually realistically possible, but it seemed like a fun thing to speculate about."
Little did they know!
Another crucial structural shift came in 1992, when Torvalds moved the kernel under the GNU General Public License (GPL). This clarified that anyone could study, modify, and redistribute the code as long as improvements remained free. That made it possible for developers to build distributions that combined the Linux kernel with GNU tools and other free software, and early distros in 1992-1993 transformed Linux from a kernel hackers compiled themselves into complete systems ordinary users could install, widening the contributor base.
Hohndel became convinced that Linux was indeed a big deal when "the first presentations about Linux at an actual conference happened in the fall of 1993 at NLUUG in Ede, NL. The conference had two tracks. The room for Linus's talk was packed, a real fire hazard with people sitting on the stairs, etc. Just before Linus was to start, the door opened again, and a few more people came in. One of the organizers told them that the room was too full and they should go next door to the other track. One of the people coming in said, 'Well, I'm the other presenter, and these are the people that were in my audience, but we all would rather hear Linus's talk.'"
Thirty-three years later, they still do. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/27/the_european_union_linux_desktop/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aZWb0QwdZtmUakr258dMGAAAAEo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[9] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/30/euro_firms_must_ditch_us/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/16/linus_torvalds_vibe_coding/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/02/ingress_nginx_opinion/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/30/canonical_ceo_mark_shuttleworth_ipo/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/08/the_us_government_wants_developers/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Did you ever wonder, though, how it went from being one person's project to being a group effort? I knew most of the story because I'd been using Linux since 1993. But I thought I'd ask Linus, and some of the early Linux developers.
The year of the European Union Linux desktop may finally arrive [1]READ MORE
It all began when Torvalds and his friend Lars Wirzenius met at the University of Helsinki. They began tinkering with PCs; computer games (Prince of Persia); social networking, which in those days was Usenet; and Unix.
In the spring and summer of 1991, Torvalds hacked on a simple Unix‑like kernel for his 386 PC. He wanted to learn about operating systems, dial into the local Usenet server, and build a more capable operating system than Minix, an academic Unix clone.
Torvalds told The Register : "The 'good old days' really aren't as rose-colored as some people like to think they were." After a few months of work, he released the first public snapshot, Linux 0.02. on October 5, 1991, on an FTP server with about 10,000 lines of code. Linux made its first appearance thanks to Torvalds' friend, Ari Lemmke, who set up the first servers at nic.funet.fi in Finland.
[2]
At this point, Torvalds wanted to call Linux "Freax," a mashup of "free," "freak," and "x" to evoke a Unix‑like system. When he uploaded the code to the FUNET FTP server, though, Lemmke disliked "Freax" and named the project directory as "Linux" instead, and that name stuck.
[3]
[4]
The audience was anyone who happened to read that Usenet thread and felt like playing with a half‑finished kernel. At the time, Torvalds wrote: "Are you without a nice project and just dying to cut your teeth on an OS you can try to modify for your needs?" The answer was yes.
At this point, there was no easy way to install Linux. [5]Wirzenius recalled in 2023 : "People were interested in trying out this new thing, so Linus needed to provide an installation method and instructions. Since he only had one PC, he came to visit to install it on mine. Since his computer had been used to develop Linux, which had simply grown on top of his Minix installation, it had never actually been installed before. Thus, mine was the first PC where Linux was ever installed. While this was happening, I was taking a nap, and I recommend this method of installing Linux: napping, while Linus does the hard work."
[6]
Torvalds, however, quipped that Wirzenius was an "early victim of my efforts."
At this stage, Torvalds cross‑compiled the kernel and its few user programs under Minix, and development decisions were whatever he wanted to try next. For example, adding a virtual memory system, getting Bash and GCC to run, or fixing a race in the buffer cache so the kernel could finally recompile itself. The barrier to entry was technical; you needed a 386 and comfort with compilers and patches, but socially, the project was still effectively a one‑man show that others only tested and tinkered with at the margins.
Windows 10's demise nears, but Linux is forever [7]READ MORE
Once 0.02 was available, a small but energetic group of volunteers began downloading, testing, tweaking, and returning patches to Torvalds via email and Usenet, turning Linux into a genuinely collaborative project within its first year. The turning point was that Torvalds not only accepted outside changes but actively encouraged them, treating his kernel as a commons that others could extend.
One of the first contributors – and still a Linux maintainer today – was Theodore "Ted" Ts'o. He created the first Linux mirror in North America. Ts'o told The Register : "I started playing with Linux sometime in September 1991. At the time, there was only a 64 kbps link between Finland and the US. Fortunately, Linux sources were a lot smaller back then – the sources for Linux 0.11 was only 93K. Still, we had to share this European interconnect with everyone else using the internet at the time, and so download times could suffer.
"Since MIT was one of the founding members of the New England Academic and Research network (NEARnet), it had multiple princely 10 megabit microwave links to Harvard, Boston University, and to BBN, where it connected to the rest of the internet. (Most universities at the time had only 1.5 megabit T1 lines.) So I set up an FTP server using my VAXstation 3100 on my desk, which was called tsx-11.mit.edu."
[8]
That's where this author stepped in. I'd already been using Unix for more than a decade. I'd seen the Usenet posts, and I was interested. But it was only after Ts'o put up his FTP server that I was able to give it a try. Needless to say, I liked it.
More importantly, though, for its development, many developers on this side of the Atlantic were able to start working with it. Ts'o's first contribution to the kernel, for example, was the imalloc.c library in Linux 0.11, the first general-purpose kernel memory allocator for Linux.
Meanwhile, in Europe, other early developers who are still working on Linux came aboard. Dirk Hohndel told us: "Initially, you'd send Linus patches, he'd look at them, but then he'd throw them away and implement the thing that you sent him from scratch the way he wanted it done. Thankfully, he stopped with that because, yeah, that doesn't scale."
[9]Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native
[10]Just because Linus Torvalds vibe codes doesn't mean it's a good idea
[11]Another open source project dies of neglect, leaving thousands scrambling
[12]Canonical CEO says no to IPO in current volatile market
No, it doesn't. Torvalds has gotten much better. Today, he rarely codes and sees his job as more of a manager than a developer.
At the time, though, he really did have his hands all over the code. There was only one problem. His 386 didn't have the horsepower he needed, and he couldn't afford a bigger, better PC. That's when his friend and fellow early Linux kernel developer H. Peter Anvin stepped up.
Torvalds recalled: "We ran what was essentially a very early 'GoFundMe' to upgrade my first machine: collected checks in the US and sent the result to me back when international banking fees were ridiculous, and that was how I upgraded my original 386 to a 486DX/2."
The Reg asked Anvin how that worked, and he said: "Linus was still making monthly payments on his computer, and we were all pretty upset about that for obvious reasons. It wasn't really a question of 'If something was going to happen,' but how? In those days, transferring money between countries was expensive. We're talking $100, $150 off the top, which, for a bunch of students, would pretty much limit what you could afford, and we didn't know each other. We didn't even know what the other looked like! How could we establish trust? So I had people send checks to my university mailbox. That way, there was no need to chase me down because the last thing any grad student wanted was for the department chair to be told, 'This student in your department has been stealing money.'"
It worked! "I collected checks for about a month, then I took them to the bank, and I covered the wiring fee," and Torvalds shortly had a brand spanking new 486DX2. OK, so your watch, never mind your phone, is more powerful these days, but back then that was a real computer.
The US government wants developers to stop using C and C++ [13]READ MORE
This crowdsourced PC also helped foster trust among early Linux community members. It was this that enabled Linux to grow from a one-man show to a group effort.
Hohndel also recalled that with this new high-end hardware, "in 1992, we were joking that maybe in a few years we'd be able to build a 'real' X terminal based on PC hardware, which would be much cheaper than the expensive dedicated X terminals (like from Hummingbird). And not one of us talking about this thought that [it] was actually realistically possible, but it seemed like a fun thing to speculate about."
Little did they know!
Another crucial structural shift came in 1992, when Torvalds moved the kernel under the GNU General Public License (GPL). This clarified that anyone could study, modify, and redistribute the code as long as improvements remained free. That made it possible for developers to build distributions that combined the Linux kernel with GNU tools and other free software, and early distros in 1992-1993 transformed Linux from a kernel hackers compiled themselves into complete systems ordinary users could install, widening the contributor base.
Hohndel became convinced that Linux was indeed a big deal when "the first presentations about Linux at an actual conference happened in the fall of 1993 at NLUUG in Ede, NL. The conference had two tracks. The room for Linus's talk was packed, a real fire hazard with people sitting on the stairs, etc. Just before Linus was to start, the door opened again, and a few more people came in. One of the organizers told them that the room was too full and they should go next door to the other track. One of the people coming in said, 'Well, I'm the other presenter, and these are the people that were in my audience, but we all would rather hear Linus's talk.'"
Thirty-three years later, they still do. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/27/the_european_union_linux_desktop/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aZWb0QwdZtmUakr258dMGAAAAEo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[5] https://lwn.net/Articles/928581/
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[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/28/windows_10_demise_linux/
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[9] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/30/euro_firms_must_ditch_us/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/16/linus_torvalds_vibe_coding/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/02/ingress_nginx_opinion/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/30/canonical_ceo_mark_shuttleworth_ipo/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/08/the_us_government_wants_developers/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
phuzz
I was only a kid then, and mostly concentrating on my Amiga, but I remember that there was all sorts of 'bedroom experiment' software and OS's, and to this day I don't know why Linus's experimental OS became the Linux we know today. At that point it wasn't even clear that x86 would have such staying power, RISC was talked about as being more future proof.
The future could have gone in many different directions at that point.
Doctor Syntax
"and to this day I don't know why Linus's experimental OS became the Linux we know today"
I think that is largely down to Linus himself and they way he was prepared to make it a communal effort.
Another factor might have been Minix which AFAICR was not so much an academic OS as an educational one. I wonder how many of the early contributors were studying that.
A final aspect must have been that they were familiar with Unix but even the SCO version was expensive. If SCO had grasped the fact that hey could have sold it at scale at a desktop OS price (there was a GUI desktop available) they could have cleaned up.
jake
"A final aspect must have been that they were familiar with Unix but even the SCO version was expensive."
Mark Williams Company's Coherent wasn't expensive at $99/seat, so that wasn't it entirely.
I rather suspect a large portion of it was that it worked with the already well-known GNU tools, coupled with the fact that it ran on cheap or free, used, bound for the scrap heap 386 PCs, and unlike the early x86 BSDs (NET/1, NET/2, BSD386 and 386BSD) it had no perceived potential for Ma Bell's lawyers to come sniffing around. Basically, it ticked all the boxes for both starving students AND startup companies in the still young SillyConValley.
steelpillow
In his autobiography, Linus said how he tried MINIX and wanted to make some improvements, but Andrew Tannenbaum would not let him.* This was what pushed him into starting from scratch. He and RMS (creator of GNU and the GPL) were kindred spirits in their disgust of proprietary lock-out and their determination to avoid it.
*AIUI Andrew did eventually release MINIX under an open license.
It's a remarkable thing
3arn0wl
Thank you Linus, ard everyone else who has made a contribution over the years.
That cracked me up!
"'Well, I'm the other presenter, and these are the people that were in my audience, but we all would rather hear Linus's talk.'"
I would have loved to have been there to see that!