Accelerating Linux

Linus Torvalds, a researcher at the University of Helsinki in Finland, has everything to do with why it seems so many people, in general, and desktop software and server technology providers, in particular, are talking about the new magic word for OS: Linux.

Linux is an operating system first developed by Torvalds in 1991 and, since then, enhanced and expanded by hundreds of programmers around the world. Although Torvalds and a select group of his closest associates standardized the kernel, or central component, of Linux, anybody with the programming skills and the patience can make a distinct version of Linux.