Den 25 august 1991 udsendte den finske studerende Linus Torvalds en besked på nyhedsgruppen comp.os.minix. Heri forklarede han at han var igang med at lave sit eget lille hobby styresystem til 80386/80486 hardware arkitekturen.

From:torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroup: comp.os.minix
Subject: What would you like to see most in minix?
Summary: small poll for my new operating system
Message-ID: 1991Aug25, 20578.9541@klaava.Helsinki.FI
Date: 25 Aug 91 20:57:08 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki.

Hello everybody out there using minix-

I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big
and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has
been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I’d like
any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix; as my OS
resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-sytem
due to practical reasons)among other things.

I’ve currently ported bash (1.08) an gcc (1.40), and things seem to work.
This implies that i’ll get something practical within a few months, and I’d
like to know what features most people want. Any suggestions are welcome,
but I won’t promise I’ll implement them 🙂

Linus Torvalds torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi

Da det netop var på denne dag at katten blev sluppet ud af sækken, regnes 25 August for at være Linux fødselsdag.

I det næste indlæg lukker han så katten ud af døren og delvist lader dyret få sit eget liv. Dette viser sig hurtigt i løbet af kort tid, at blive en afgørende faktor for Linux videre liv.

From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Free minix-like kernel sources for 386-AT
Message-ID: <1991Oct5.054106.4647@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: 5 Oct 91 05:41:06 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

Do you pine for the nice days of minix-1.1, when men were men and wrote
their own device drivers? Are you without a nice project and just dying
to cut your teeth on a OS you can try to modify for your needs? Are you
finding it frustrating when everything works on minix? No more all-
nighters to get a nifty program working? Then this post might be just
for you 🙂

As I mentioned a month(?) ago, I’m working on a free version of a
minix-lookalike for AT-386 computers. It has finally reached the stage
where it’s even usable (though may not be depending on what you want),
and I am willing to put out the sources for wider distribution. It is
just version 0.02 (+1 (very small) patch already), but I’ve successfully
run bash/gcc/gnu-make/gnu-sed/compress etc under it.

Linus Thorvalds havde selv navngivet det “Freax”. Da Ari Lemke skulle navngive det bibliotek, der skulle indholde Freax kildekode på nic.funet.fi, gav han det dog navnet “Linux” – det syntes han lød bedre og det havde han ganske ret i.

Her i 2014 er Linux det mest betydende styresystem på kloden, hverken mere eller mindre. Størstedelen af verdens servere er Linux-baseret og dermed er det ligeledes Linux der holder Internettet i live. En meget stor del af verdens indlejrede enheder, såsom harddisk-optageren fra YouSee, størstedelen af verdens supercomputere og ikke mindst langt størstedelen af verdens smartphones er basalt set Linux drevne.

Et stort tillykke til styresystemet der forandrede verden og bragte den fri kildekode ud til selv de mindste afkroge på denne klode og ikke mindst en stor tak til Linus Torvalds for at give kildekoden fri og dermed muliggøre den Open Source revolution vi har set de sidste par årtier.