Linus Torvalds

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The long-awaited interview with former teen-idol and operating system developer, Linus Torvalds! Be sure to check out the other Torvalds interview we found on the net, plus this hot photo suitable for inclusion in our Nude Nerds Calendar! And BTW, Linus, thanks -- our Geek Chic server is a LINUX box, and still serves our email and DNS.

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• What is your programming language of choice?

  It's generally C, but often written as if the compiler is just a very smart assembler.

• What is your favorite operating system?

  You must be kidding!

  Hint: it's not made by MS.

• Do you have a hero or role model?

  "Role model" as in somebody I'd like to be like? I guess not. I'm happy enough with being who I am.

  But there are _lots_ of people that I admire immensely. They tend to be the scientist type rather than athletes/politicians/movie stars.

• What is your favorite kind of music?

  I have to admit to being pretty uninterested in music. I often have something on as background noise, but then it might as well be just about any random radio channel or even MTV. Classical to Beatles to modern is fine (just as long as it's not rap or techno!).

• What is your favorite news group?

  I tend to have to read news in order to follow the Linux groups, so reading news is more of a job than fun to me. Comp.arch may be one of the more interesting technical groups, and occasionally when I want something different I subscribe to alt.tasteless and see if there is anything fun going on (99.9% of it is horribly bad, but there can sometimes be real jewels in there and I'm used to having to sift out the uninteresting stuff).

• What is your favorite web page (besides geekchic!)?

  I'll be boring and say "altavista". Not because it's fun, but because it's so useful. I don't go net-surfing for fun (see about newsgroups above), when I want to relax I do something else.

• What sports do you enjoy?

  Snooker (it's slightly like billiards for those of you out there that have no clue about it). It has the added advantage than you can usually drink beer at the same time as "exercising".

• What kind of car do you drive?

  None at the moment. Where I currently live (center of Helsinki) a car is more of a hindrance than a help.

• What hobbies do you enjoy outside of work?

  Reading.

• What is your favorite book (or author)?

  It changes. I tend to wolf down books, and I don't have any one favourite book. Terry Pratchett (humor), Robert Jordan (fantasy), Clive Barker and Phil Rickman (horror) have been good performers. I used to love "Stranger in a Strange Land" (Robert Heinlein, scifi) a few years back.

• What is your favorite movie?

  Like books, I don't have long-standing favourites: I generally don't want to see the same movie twice even if I liked it a lot the first time around.

  As with books, I tend to like the entertaining movies rather than serious movies. Action, adventure, big heroes etc etc. I liked ID4, for example, but I doubt I'll really remember it as anything special one year from now.

• What sort of clothing do you usually wear to work?

  Jeans, T-shirt, sneakers/sandals.

  I've been seen in stranglers, but not to work.

• What is your favorite food?

  Hot indian or thai, chinese is fine, and good _meat_ that says "Moo" when you stick it with your fork.