Oral History of Linus Torvalds
CHM Ref: X4147.2008 © 2008 Computer History Museum Page 6 of 41
Torvalds: My main authors back then were
so-called hard science fiction, so it would be Asimov and
Heinlein. Those were the two main ones. I mean my favorite book for the longest time was Heinlein's
Martian story. Oh God, it is a long time since I've read that one.
Booch: The Martian Chronicles?
Torvalds: No, no. That one is Burroughs, isn't it?
Booch: I'm trying to think of it as well, too. We'll dig that one up [Stranger in a Strange Land].
Torvalds: Wow, it literally was my favorite book, whatever 15, 20 years ago and now I can't even
remember the title. I'm sure it's somewhere behind there but I'm not going to even turn around to look.
Booch: What else did you like to do as a kid, were you a physical kind of kid?
Torvalds: No. I still am not a physical kind of kid. I
hate sports with a passion, probably because my
dad tried to make me do basketball and things like that, which I was not physically very tall anyway. And
if you're not that interested in game sports, which I definitely wasn't, I never got into that whole thing. So I
was very much a geek. I mean, I stayed inside and read or programmed, and that was what I did. I
basically had no other interests in life. And quite frankly, that is still what I tend to do when I'm not doing
anything else. It's still reading and sitting in front of the computer.
Booch: It's your hobby as well?
Torvalds: It is my hobby.
Booch: Were you influenced or being pressured to move into the area of journalism? Here you were
reading a lot and you have all of this family around you that were journalists.
Torvalds: No, there was no pressure. I mean it's kind of a joke that everybody else is a journalist and
I'm the black sheep. But there was certainly no pressure at all. I mean, coming from that kind of
background, you had a strong pressure to speak well and have a strong language. And obviously the
whole reading part was part of the whole culture in the family. But it was not, I will disown you if you don't
become a journalist.
Booch: But would it be fair to say that that influence probably pushed you to think out of the box, would
that be a fair statement? As a journalist, these were folks who probably were not just reporting on the
world, but questioning the world too. Was that an element of it?
Torvalds: I don't know. I don't think the journalism part necessarily. I think that whole culture meant
that, okay, communication was important and that books were considered important. But I'm not sure if it
had any-- who knows? Trying to analyze yourself is not likely to be fruitful. You had to have somebody
else kind of see the picture from the outside.
Oral History of Linus Torvalds
CHM Ref: X4147.2008 © 2008 Computer History Museum Page 7 of 41
Booch: Then finally, university. Why did you choose to go where you went?
Torvalds: That was easy. I mean, basically I wanted to be a scientist. I mean that was what my
grandfather had done to me, was if you're interested in computers and math and your biggest, like, idols
are scientists, then it was very obvious that I wanted to go to university. I mean anything else would have
been completely unacceptable in my family, too. And Helsinki University was the largest university in
Finland and it was right there, so there was no real, even, I mean there was no choice. I could have gone
to the technical university, which is much more-- it's not actually in Helsinki. It's just outside of Helsinki,
which is much more practically oriented and is more of an electrical engineering place. And to some
degree, that would probably have suited me better since I was very practically oriented, but at the same
time I really enjoyed the theoretical side, too.
Booch: Theoretical side of what kind of science, because you mentioned math and physics.
Torvalds: I did most math and computer science. But I mean, the computer science was computer
science, it was not programming. So most of the courses at the university would be things like complexity
analysis, which things like that where you don't really even necessarily do a lot of programming, if any at
all, but you discuss the problems, [at] more of an algorithmic level. I don't know how much immediate
practical use that ever really had, but the mindset of thinking about the problem at a higher level, as I'm
convinced, is pretty useful. Since I had the low level, that part the university didn't really help with or try to
teach at all.
Booch: Any professors come to mind that really were influential for you?
Torvalds: No, not really. I think at that point, in fact university-- I was pretty self-sufficient and I've--
maybe not fully-formed but certainly not longer my formative years. And I think that if, when it comes to
teachers, aside from my grandfather, it would have been my math teacher in high school who was more
influential there.
Booch: What level of math was he bringing about, calculus?
Torvalds: Math, I think math in high school in Finland is already at a higher level than it probably is here,
unless you take some advanced math classes in the U.S. But just as an example, he basically wrote the
book that everybody else used in high school. And the first lecture we ever had from him, he said, okay, I
wrote this book. I will not use it. And he basically acted the way math ended up being taught at a
university level, where he'd give out notes and you weren't required to do your own notes because he felt
that that was a waste of your time and his. And it was much better that he gave everybody his notes and
you [were] supposed to listen and think about it instead of trying to write it down. In fact, when I went to
university, I was wavering between doing math and computer science as my major, just because I
actually thought I liked math better. But at the same time, computers was kind of what I did as a hobby,
and there was also a very obvious path from computers to actually getting employed. So I ended up
doing computers as a major, but math was a very strong minor for me.
Booth: Did you imagine at that time that you'd probably just go into some business in the country or did
you have a grand plan?