In 1991 a kernel named Linux was developed by LinusTorvalds, a Finnish college student who was attending the University of Helsinki. Linux started out as a terminal emulator written in IA-32 assembler and C, which was compiled into binary form and booted from a floppy disk so that it would run outside of any operating system. The terminal emulator ran two threads: one for sending and one for receiving characters from the serial port. When Linus needed to read and write files to disk, this task-switching terminal emulator was extended with an entire filesystem handler. After that, it gradually evolved into an entire operating system kernel intended as a foundation for POSIX-compliant systems. The first version of the Linux kernel (0.01) was released to the Internet on September 17, 1991, with the second version following shortly thereafter in October. Since then, thousands of developers from around the world have participated in the project.

            The name "Linux" was coined not by Torvalds but by Ari Lemmke. He invented the name Linux for the directory from which Torvalds' project was first available for download. Originally, Linus was going to call it Freax for "free" and with the often-used X in the names of Unix-like systems. The name Linux was later trademarked.

            In the past, a user needed significant knowledge of computers in order to install and configure Linux. Because of this, and because of being attracted by access to the internals of the system, Linux users have traditionally tended to be more technologically oriented than users of Microsoft Windows and Mac OS, sometimes revelling in the tag of "hacker" or "geek". This stereotype has been dispelled in recent years by the increased user-friendliness and broad adoption of many Linux distributions. Linux has made considerable gains in server and special-purpose markets, such as image rendering and Web services, and is now making inroads into the high volume desktop market.

            The hardware requirements for Linux are as follows: Intel Pentium-class or compatible processor recommended (limited x86 support), 64 MB of memory, CD-ROM drive, 20 MB disk space, 40 MB - 135 MB additional disk space for system-wide Windows installation; 40 MB - 200 MB for each additional user, and additional disk space required for applications.

            The future of Linux is disscussed anually at the Linux Kernel Development Summit. These confrences bring together the core of the Kernel development team to plan the next phases of Linux Kernel development. These developer-to-developer, two-day events deliver substantive technical sessions and workshops where developers and industry leaders readily share and exchange ideas. These events set out to further feature developments that bring Linux into Enterprise class and highly available computing environments.