Linus Torvalds

Linus Benedict Torvalds (/ˈliːnəs ˈɔːrɔːldz/ lee-NƏS-_-TOR-vawldz,Swedish pronunciation: [ˈliːnʉs ˈtuːrvɑlds] ( listen); born 28 December 1969) is a Finnish-American software engineer.

His parents named him after Linus Pauling. He studied at the University of Helsinki from 1988 to 1996. He became famous because of the success of his operating system, Linux. He started making this system as a student project in 1991. He based it on the popular UNIX operating system. Today, Linux has become the most popular free operating system.