Oral History of Linus Torvalds
Interviewed by:
Grady Booch
Edited by:
Dag Spicer
Recorded: July 27, 2008
Portland, Oregon
CHM Reference number: X4596.2008
© 2008 Computer History Museum
Oral History of Linus Torvalds
CHM Ref: X4147.2008 © 2008 Computer History Museum Page 2 of 41
Grady Booch: Here we are on July 25
th
[2008] in the lovely home of Linus Torvalds, interviewing him for
the Computer History Museum. So, thank you very much for joining us here. Well, actually not for joining
us, we're joining you. So, thank you for inviting us in. Let's begin at the very, very beginning. You were
born where? Tell us a little about your childhood.
Linus Torvalds: I was born in Helsinki, 1969, and quite frankly, I don't remember much of my childhood.
I'm told there are people who remember when they were small. My memory goes back to about when I
was ten-years old and that's it, nothing very special, I'm afraid.
Booch: And your parents? Tell us a little bit about that.
Torvalds: My whole family is basically journalists. So my dad is a journalist, my mother is a journalist,
my sister has become a journalist, my uncle on my father's side, my grandfather on my father's side.
They're all journalists. So I'm actually the black sheep in the family, although there are a few scientists on
my mother's side, so…
Booch: Scientists of what nature, what field where they?
Torvalds: My grandfather on my mother's side was a mathematician, statistics, and my uncle on that
side is a physicist, so…
Booch: And indeed, claims are that you were either named after Linus from the Peanuts strip or Linus
Pauling. Which is it?
Torvalds: They're both correct, apparently. I'm told that I have this dualistic nature of serious and not-
so-serious.
Booch: It was stamped upon you at the very beginning, it sounds like.
Torvalds: Yeah, maybe.
Booch: Any siblings when you were growing up?
Torvalds: I've got a sister, full sister, and I've got three half brothers. So, they're all younger.
Booch: What was Helsinki like when you were growing up, any memories of being in Helsinki? Were
you i
n the city proper or in a suburb or…
Torvalds: I was in the city proper. And I don't know if there's any specific memories, just the basic fact
that I grew up basically walking everywhere because, I mean, European cities being like they are, much
denser than here in the U.S., that was basically my mode of transportation all the way until I moved here.
But it's a beautiful city, even if it's not maybe the most exciting place in the world.
Oral History of Linus Torvalds
CHM Ref: X4147.2008 © 2008 Computer History Museum Page 3 of 41
Booch: Now your maternal grandfather was a bit of an influence upon you, as well, was he not? Tell us
about-- Tell us about how he influenced you, because I understand there was something about a
computer he bought.
Torvalds: Right. So, I think my maternal grandfather was, to some degree, my biggest influence. Not
just because of the computer, but because even before the computer came to be, he was kind of, he was
the scientist in the family that I was in, like, got to know fairly well. And he was teaching me math and
that's actually how I then got to know the computer he bought for his own mathematical needs. He'd
basically used it as a very glorified calculator. And I was helping him type in the programs, whether he
actually needed that help or not, I don't actually know. And it may have been that it was just his way of
getting me into computers, although it may also have been that he was just used to doing everything on
paper. So I would take his programs that he wrote on paper and type them in. And I was something like
10 or 11 at the time.
Booch: So you wrote your first programs when you were 10 or 11?
Torvalds: Well, I didn't actually write my first programs that way, I mean I wrote his first programs. And
then I started doing-- I'd never really modified his programs because statistics was never my forte, even
later on when I actually had a minor in math. Statistics just goes over my head. But back then, I mean
this was [the] early '80s, you'd get computer magazines and type in their programs. And at that point you
start modifying them because they're some kind of simple game or something. So, yeah, maybe I started
programming so that I actually wrote my own programs when I was 12, 13.
Booch: What was the computer he bought, and what was his full name, by the way?
Torvalds: His full name was Leo Törnqvist.
Booch: We better spell that one.
Torvalds: L-E-O, Leo is a real name in the U.S., too. Törnqvist, T-Ö, well, "O" with
two dots on top,
which doesn't even exist in English, R-N-Q-V-I-S-T. So, now I've lost my-- where was I?
Booch: His first computer, what was it?
Torvalds
: Oh, it was…
Booch: Was it a Finnish computer?
Torvalds: No, it was a Commodore VIC-20, which didn't make it very big. I think most people probably
remember the Commodore 64 or just a ‘64. That was the kind of follow
-on successor, and much more
successful.
Booch: Do you still have it?