Linus Torvalds - System Quotes

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When you say, "I wrote a program that crashed Windows," people just stare at you blankly and say, "Hey, I got those with the system, for free."

Linus Torvalds
I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.

Linus Torvalds
Microsoft isn't evil, they just make really crappy operating systems.

Linus Torvalds
I'm a bastard. I have absolutely no clue why people can ever think otherwise. Yet they do. People think I'm a nice guy, and the fact is that I'm a scheming, conniving bastard who doesn't care for any hurt feelings or lost hours of work, if it just results in what I consider to be a better system. And I'm not just saying that. I'm really not a very nice person. I can say "I don't care" with a straight face, and really mean it.

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
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
I think Leopard is a much better system [than Windows Vista] … but OS X in some ways is actually worse than Windows to program for. Their file system is complete and utter crap, which is scary.

Linus Torvalds
C++ is in that inconvenient spot where it doesn't help make things simple enough to be truly usable for prototyping or simple GUI programming, and yet isn't the lean system programming language that C is that actively encourages you to use simple and direct constructs.

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