1991年10月，21岁的Linus在USNET新闻组——comp.os.mimix上发表文章。文章内容如下：
Hello everybody out there using minix - I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby,won't be big and professional like gnu ) for 386 (486) AT clones. This has been brewing since April,and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like /dislike in minix, as my OS resembles practical reasons among other things. I've currently proted bash (1.08) and gcc (1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, and I'd like to know what feathers most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them:-)Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinkifi) Ps.Yes - it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT portable(uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-hard-disks, as that's all I have.
因为这篇文章，Linux开始了以后的快速 发展。从第一个Linux内核的Release——Linux Kernel 0.0.2开始。。。
为什么Linux的Logo是一只企鹅？一个有趣的故事：
Linux Torvalds去澳大利亚旅游，见到一些企鹅（我就纳闷了，澳大利亚也有企鹅吗？其实真有，在澳大利亚的菲利浦岛有一种仙企鹅
），当Linus伸手去抚摸其中一只时被咬了一口，这使得他对这种可爱的动物留下了深刻的印象。虽然被企鹅咬了一口，但Linus仍对这只小动物情有独钟（可见外表是很重要，要不怎么都喜欢美女呢），以至于后来要为Linux设计一个Logo时，Linus力排众议选择了一只憨态可掬的企鹅作为Linux的Logo。