Linus Torvalds - Linux Quotes

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…the Linux philosophy is "laugh in the face of danger". Oops. Wrong one. "Do it yourself". That's it.

Linus Torvalds
Well, with a subject like this, I'm afraid I'll have to reply. Apologies to minix-users who have heard enough about linux anyway. I'd like to be able to just "ignore the bait", but … time for some serious flamefesting!

Linus Torvalds
I started Linux as a desktop operating system. And it's the only area where Linux hasn't completely taken over. That just annoys the hell out of me.

Linus Torvalds
One of the things, none of the distributions have ever done right is application packaging [...] making binaries for linux desktop applications is a major fucking pain in the ass.

Linus Torvalds
Note that nobody reads every post in linux-kernel. In fact, nobody who expects to have time left over to actually do any real kernel work will read even half. Except Alan Cox, but he's actually not human, but about a thousand gnomes working in under-ground caves in Swansea. None of the individual gnomes read all the postings either, they just work together really well.

Linus Torvalds
No. That's it. The cool name, that is. We worked very hard on creating a name that would appeal to the majority of people, and it certainly paid off: thousands of people are using linux just to be able to say "OS/2? Hah. I've got Linux. What a cool name". 386BSD made the mistake of putting a lot of numbers and weird abbreviations into the name, and is scaring away a lot of people just because it sounds too technical.

Linus Torvalds
To kind of explain what Linux is, you have to explain what an operating system is. And the thing about an operating system is that you're never ever supposed to see it. Because nobody really uses an operating system; people use programs on their computer. And the only mission in life of an operating system is to help those programs run. So an operating system never does anything on its own; it's only waiting for the programs to ask for certain resources, or ask for a certain file on the disk, or ask to connect to the outside world. And then the operating system steps in and tries to make it easy for people to write programs.

Linus Torvalds
The main reason there are no raw devices [in Linux] is that I personally think that raw devices are a stupid idea.

Linus Torvalds
Making Linux GPL'd was definitely the best thing I ever did.

Linus Torvalds
Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen an angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100 mph. They'd be a lot more careful about what they say if they had.

Linus Torvalds
Even if the Hurd didn't depend on Linux code (and as far as I know, it does, but since I think they have their design heads firmly up their asses anyway with that whole microkernel thing, I've never felt it was worth my time even looking at their code), I don't believe a religiously motivated development community can ever generate as good code except by pure chance.

Linus Torvalds
See, you not only have to be a good coder to create a system like Linux, you have to be a sneaky bastard too ;-)

Linus Torvalds
I'm an egotistical bastard, and I name all my projects after myself. First Linux, now git.

Linus Torvalds
Controlling a laser with Linux is crazy, but everyone in this room is crazy in his own way. So if you want to use Linux to control an industrial welding laser, I have no problem with your using PREEMPT_RT.

Linus Torvalds