Linux includes true multitasking, virtual memory, shared libraries, demand loading, proper memory management, TCP/IP networking, and other features consistent with Unix-type systems.

Making Linux work better is nearly a full-time hobby for Torvalds, taking up at least a couple of hours a day.

"It's the best kind of hobby. It's a passion. Other people build the Eiffel Tower out of matchsticks."

Before long, the computer and math became Torvalds' passion. He rejected his father's efforts to get him interested in basketball or other activities. "I was never very good," Torvalds says.

"He once said that he won't eat sweets. I promised him 100 Finnish marks if he kept that for a year," Nils [Linus' father] Torvalds says. "He did, but the following day (after the bet), he took the money and bought sweets for the whole sum."

That same attitude helps explain why Torvalds is so eager to counterbalance Microsoft's dominance. He wants computer users to have a choice among several operating systems, not just one from Microsoft. "I'm not rabid anti-Microsoft," he says. "But they make it so hard to compete."

His father seems proud as he compares his son's creation of a free computer operating system to political philosopher Thomas Paine in the 18th century. Says Nils Torvalds: "Writing Linux in the 20th century could be as big a contribution to this civil society."

Page Link