Linus Benedict Torvalds ( , ; born 28 December 1969) is a Finnish software engineer who is the creator and lead developer of the

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a Free and open-source software, free and open source Unix-like kernel (operating system), kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and was soon adopted as the k ...

. He also created the

distributed version control In software development, distributed version control (also known as distributed revision control) is a form of version control in which the complete codebase, including its full history, is mirrored on every developer's computer. Compared to centr ...

system

Git Git () is a distributed version control system that tracks versions of files. It is often used to control source code by programmers who are developing software collaboratively. Design goals of Git include speed, data integrity, and suppor ...

. He was honored, along with

Shinya Yamanaka is a Japanese stem cell researcher and a Nobel Prize laureate. He is a professor and the director emeritus of Center for iPS Cell (induced Pluripotent Stem Cell) Research and Application, Kyoto University; as a senior investigator at the U ...

, with the 2012

Millennium Technology Prize The Millennium Technology Prize () is one of the world's largest technology prizes. It is awarded once every two years by Technology Academy Finland, an independent foundation established by Finnish industries, academic institutions, and the st ...

by the Technology Academy Finland "in recognition of his creation of a new

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

for

computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...

s leading to the widely used Linux

kernel Kernel may refer to: Computing * Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems * Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution * Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming * Kernel method, in machine learnin ...

". He is also the recipient of the 2014 IEEE Computer Society Computer Pioneer Award and the 2018

IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award The IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award is a Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers#Technical field awards, Technical Field Award of the IEEE given for outstanding contributions to Consumer electronics, consumer electronic ...

Life and career

Early years

Torvalds was born in

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

, Finland, on 28 December 1969, the son of journalists Anna and

Nils Torvalds Nils Ole Hilmer Torvalds (born 7 August 1945) is a Finnish politician who had been a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2012 to 2024. He is a member of the Swedish People's Party of Finland, part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democra ...

, the grandson of statistician Leo Törnqvist and of poet

Ole Torvalds Ole Torvalds (4 August 1916 – 8 February 1995) was a Finnish-Swedish journalist and poet. He was the father of journalist-politician Nils Torvalds and grandfather of software engineer Linus Torvalds famous for the Linux kernel. His full name ...

, and the great-grandson of journalist and soldier

Toivo Karanko Toivo Tuomas Savolainen, later Karanko (20 September 1891 Nurmes - 15 May 1969 Helsinki) was a Finnish Jäger captain and a journalist.Suomen jääkärien elämäkerrasto 1938Suomen jääkärien elämäkerrasto 1975 Studies Savolainen enrolled a ...

. His parents were campus radicals at the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...

in the 1960s. His family belongs to the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. He was named after

Linus Pauling Linus Carl Pauling ( ; February 28, 1901August 19, 1994) was an American chemist and peace activist. He published more than 1,200 papers and books, of which about 850 dealt with scientific topics. ''New Scientist'' called him one of the 20 gre ...

, the Nobel Prize–winning American chemist, although in the book ''

Rebel Code ''Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution'' is a technology book by Glyn Moody published in 2001. It describes the evolution and significance of the free software and open source movements with many interviews with notable hackers. The ...

: Linux and the Open Source Revolution'', he is quoted as saying, "I think I was named equally for Linus the

Peanuts ''Peanuts'' (briefly subtitled ''featuring Good ol' Charlie Brown'') is a print syndication, syndicated daily strip, daily and Sunday strip, Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz. The strip's original run ext ...

cartoon character", noting that this made him "half Nobel Prize–winning chemist and half blanket-carrying cartoon character". His interest in computers began with a

VIC-20 The VIC-20 (known as the VC-20 in Germany and the VIC-1001 in Japan) is an 8-bit entry level home computer that was sold by Commodore International, Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commod ...

at the age of 11 in 1981. He started programming for it in

BASIC Basic or BASIC may refer to: Science and technology * BASIC, a computer programming language * Basic (chemistry), having the properties of a base * Basic access authentication, in HTTP Entertainment * Basic (film), ''Basic'' (film), a 2003 film ...

, then later by directly accessing the

6502 The MOS Technology 6502 (typically pronounced "sixty-five-oh-two" or "six-five-oh-two") William Mensch and the moderator both pronounce the 6502 microprocessor as ''"sixty-five-oh-two"''. is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by a small ...

CPU in

machine code In computer programming, machine code is computer code consisting of machine language instructions, which are used to control a computer's central processing unit (CPU). For conventional binary computers, machine code is the binaryOn nonb ...

(he did not utilize

assembly language In computing, assembly language (alternatively assembler language or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence bet ...

). He then purchased a

Sinclair QL The Sinclair QL (for ''Quantum Leap'') is a personal computer launched by Sinclair Research in 1984, as an upper-end counterpart to the ZX Spectrum. The QL was the last desktop microcomputer from Sinclair Research aimed at the serious home use ...

, which he modified extensively, especially its operating system. "Because it was so hard to get software for it in Finland", he wrote his own assembler and

editor Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, a ...

"(in addition to

Pac-Man ''Pac-Man,'' originally called in Japan, is a 1980 maze video game developed and published by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. The pla ...

graphics libraries)" for the QL, and a few games. He wrote a ''

'' clone, ''Cool Man''. Torvalds attended the

from 1988 to 1996,