Linus Torvalds Quotes

We all love Linux, but it's also a fact that some people might not be able to migrate.

There are lots of Linux users who don't care how the kernel works, but only want to use it. That is a tribute to how good Linux is.

I've tried it a couple of times over the years, mainly because the thing Ubuntu did so well was make Debian usable. I always felt that Debian was a pointless exercise because to me, the point of a distribution is to make everything easy. Easy to install, to be pretty and to be friendly and Ubuntu did that to Debian.

Linux has more than satisfied any small initial expectations I had. It's simply incredible how successful Linux has been, and how good a time I've had developing it and leading the project. It does take a lot of my time, but it's time I really enjoy spending, and Linux has continued to be challenging both technically and from a managing standpoint.

There are lots of Linux users who don't care how the kernel works but only want to use it is not only a tribute to how good Linux is, but it also brings up issues that I would never have thought of otherwise.

I appreciate all the devices the Windows people are coming up with, but the operating system... I just want to smash it.

Linux is its own worst enemy: it's splintered, it has different distributions, it's too complex to run for most people.

Red Carpet Enterprise has been really well received since one guy can install it in about an hour, and it makes it trivial to deal with software management issues like deploying updates and creating standard package sets for your various machines.

The accomplishment of open source is that it is the back end of the web, the invisible part, the part that you don't see as a user.

Any editing, software work, and mail is done in this exported Plan 9.

I work on OpenBSD fulltime, as the project leader. I set some directions, increase communication between the developers, and try to be involved in nearly every aspect of the base system.

I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. I think we'll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people.

Ubuntu is doing amazing things, and I think it's going to change the face of the desktop.

Unix has, I think for many years, had a reputation as being difficult to learn and incomplete. Difficult to learn means that the set of shared conventions, and things that are assumed about the way it works, and the basic mechanisms, are just different from what they are in other systems.

What commercialism has brought into Linux has been the incentive to make a good distribution that is easy to use and that has all the packaging issues worked out.

See, you not only have to be a good coder to create a system like Linux, you have to be a sneaky bastard too.

I've been very happy with the commercial Linux CD-ROM vendors linux Red Hat.

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

I was surprised about vi going in, though, I didn't know it was in System V.

I very seldom worry about other systems. I concentrate pretty fully on just making Linux the best I can.

I think Linux is a great thing, in the big picture. It's a great hacker's tool, and it has a lot of potential to become something more.

For many years, even as users became more sophisticated, personal computers took too much effort to use without problem-solving, keeping alive the yearning for greater simplicity. Microsoft's dominant Windows platform, in particular, was a home for all manner of bugs and problems that required IT people to straighten out.

In addition to making Android available for free, Google also lets phone makers change the code and customize it so that an Android phone made by, say, Samsung has a different user interface than an Android phone from Motorola.

As software began to be sold to people who would never consider themselves technical, it suddenly became clear that you needed people who spoke their language.

The number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected.