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Happy 35th Birthday, Linux!
It was on August 25th, 1991, that the 21-year-old Finnish student Linus Benedict Torvalds made his now-famous announcement on the comp.os.minix newsgroup that he was working on a free operating system for 386 (486) AT clones, just as a “hobby”.
That’s right, it’s been 35 years since he made that announcement, and he probably never dreamed that the so-called “hobby” would turn into something huge, used by millions of computer users around the globe.
Update (by Roy)
More here:
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Linux at 35: The Hobby That Became Every Platform’s Foundation
August 25, 1991. A 21-year-old computer science student at the University of Helsinki posts a message to the Minix newsgroup.
“I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.”
Ten thousand lines of code. No networking support. Could run bash and gcc. Not much else.
Today — 35 years later, to the day — Linux runs on 96.3% of the world’s top one million web servers (W3Techs 2026). Every Android phone. The International Space Station. The New York Stock Exchange. AWS, Azure, Google Cloud: primarily Linux. Every Kubernetes cluster you’ve ever deployed. 100% of the world’s top 500 supercomputers.
Valnet:
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35 years ago today, Linus Torvalds made a Usenet post that introduced Linux to the world
Sometimes, if we're really lucky, we get to see the exact moment a huge part of our lives first got its legs. The good news is, if something started on the internet, there's a very good chance we have it logged somewhere. Such is the case with the Usenet post that Linus Torvalds made to announce the existence of Linux, and 35 years later to the day, the "just a hobby" OS would become a powerful force in the open-source world.
Tom's Hardware:
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Linux was announced by Linus Torvalds 35 years ago today — humble OS started with 10,000 lines of code but has now grown to 40 million, dominates global infrastructure
The development of Linux, a free ‘hobby’ operating system, was announced by Linus Torvalds 35 years ago today. On August 25, 1991, the unknown computer science student noted that the budding OS had been “brewing since April, and is starting to get ready.” The first public release of this ‘Minix-like’ OS came the following month, and in a last-minute change by the co-worker who uploaded it, was distributed with the name Linux instead of Freax. In 2026, Linux powers everything from smartphones to supercomputers and oodles of products, like the Steam Deck, in between.
ZDNet:
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'Just a hobby, won't be big': Linus Torvalds introduced Linux 35 years ago - and almost called it Freax
Looking at the bigger picture, Torvalds has said the period in early 1992, when Linux switched to the GNU Public License version 2 (GPLv2), was especially important. He recalled: "It wasn't the original license, but I'm convinced it's a big part of why Linux became so widespread. Not everybody loves the GPL, and I've had my own issues with the FSF [Free Software Foundation], but I do think the GPLv2 has been a huge deal, and people shouldn't dismiss the licensing issues."
Linux Magazine:
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Roll Out the Cake: Linux Turns 35
35 years ago, a Finnish student began a humble project that would forever change the course of technology.
Might be slop:
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Linux Turns 35: How A Student’s “Hobby” Became The Foundation of The Digital World
Linux is celebrating its 35th anniversary, marking more than three decades since a 21-year-old Finnish computer science student quietly announced a personal operating-system project that would eventually transform global technology.
On August 25, 1991, Linus Torvalds posted a message to the comp.os.minix newsgroup seeking feedback on a free operating system he had been developing since April. Written for Intel 386 and 486 personal computers, the project was introduced with the famously modest description “just a hobby.”
Some slopfarms emit spam about it this week.