Softpanorama (slightly skeptical) Open Source Software Educational Society

May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-) Softpanorama Search

Softpanorama Linus Torvalds' Interviews Collection (1994)
(preserving Linus Torvalds interviews for humanity ;-)

• LJ #1 March 1994 Interview with Linus Torvalds

Linux Journal: What aspects of Linux are you taking responsibility for on an on-going basis?

Linus: Everything that directly concerns the kernel: some of it I can't actually fix myself (mostly drivers for hardware I don't own and have no idea about), but in that case I still want to know about the problems and try to act as a "router" to the person who actually handles that piece of code. The areas I consider especially "mine" are memory management, the VFS layer and the "kernel proper" (scheduling, interrupt handling etc). Generally things that make up the very heart of the kernel, and on top of which all the other stuff has to go.

Linux Journal: What is your field of study, and what do you plan to specialize in upon graduation?

Linus: I'm studying mostly operating systems (surprise, surprise), and compiler design: rather low-level stuff mostly. I expect I'll expand that to communications and distributed systems for obvious reasons, but I haven't really decided on anything yet. So far, my "field" has been any courses that I find interesting, and I hope I won't have to specialize any more than that in the future either.

Linus: I read more English than either Swedish (my mother tongue) or Finnish (which is the majority language in Finland, of course), so I while I'm not completely comfortable actually speaking the language (partly due to pronunciation), I don't have any problems reading, writing or indeed thinking in English.

The reason for reading English is simply that there are more interesting books available in English, and that they are usually cheaper even over here (larger printings, no translation costs, etc.). Besides, it's often the original language, so even when the book is available as a translation, I usually prefer to read it in English.

• Interview with Linus Torvalds - Interview with Linus Torvalds. by Belinda Frazier. Interview was conducted via e-mail in October, 1994

  Linux Journal: What are the new features you see as needed for Linux?

  Linus: The main new feature needed by the average user would probably be the ability to run Windows binaries; I hope the WINE project really works out. From a kernel view, the memory management needs some tuning, and the buffer cache needs to be re-organized to allow indexing by inode and offset instead of the current device-centered view. And threading is already something of an issue.