Linus Torvalds and the Portland Linux User Group

Linus Torvalds is the person behind the Linux kernel. He released version 0.01 in 1991. He’s lived in the Portland Oregon area for a number of years, and visits the Portland Linux User Group on occasion.

Linus visits the Portland Linux User Group

He came to us on April 4, the 30th anniversary of the Portland Linux User Group (PLUG). The organizers deliberately avoided publicizing the event, and it worked! We had a group of maybe 25 attendees, and it was almost like sitting around a campfire with one my personal heroes.

This was my first PLUG meeting since before COVID. But I knew something was up when one of the organizers posted about something special happening for the 30th anniversary.

Linus shared his flaws

Linus answered questions from what was admittedly a mostly adoring crowd. My notes reflect what I heard, and I’m making them as accurate as I know how. I may add more as I reflect on the event.

He’s surprisingly humble. He admits his flaws, and talked about apologizing for them. He knows that his “soft skills” are weak, and talked about others in the Linux kernel project who are better at it. He knows that he’s privileged, starting with affordable education in his native Finland. After 8 years in university, he had 8k in debt.

He talked about how geeks are less social, how his sisters would help him remember names of relatives. His thought was that geeks focused their brains on other things. It helped us afterwards, as we could talk to each other like long lost friends, even when we did not remember names.

Maintaining the Linux kernel and… Git

Linus talked about the experience of maintaining the Linux kernel. But he’s also responsible for Git. When I asked if he’s ever had a problem with a merge conflict, he started talking about how it’s a sign of inconsistent code. Instead of resolving the conflict directly, he’ll go upstream and PR changes. When needed, he’ll bisect the commits to identify the source of the problem.

He talked about this from the perspective of a “power user,” as he’s delegated development of Git to others.

He talked about the differences between certain kinds of kernel maintainers. In his experience, file system maintainers are tense and rigorous. Any changes they make can have widespread effects. In contrast, graphics maintainers are “happy-go-lucky.”

Succession plans and community

He used to be concerned about succession plans. He realizes that people know and have come to trust those who work with him. At present, he called out Greg Kroah-Hartman as the person that the community would trust. My interpretation: he doesn’t want to designate a successor, but the Linux kernel community is healthy enough to do it for him.

Artificial intelligence

Linus talked a bit about AI. He believes that AI is overhyped, but is good for two things:

• Bullshitting
• Basic framework pattern recognition

When pushed, he visualized a future time where we could ask AI to create the code for a visualized website. My interpretation: AI in the future might take a “Figma” design and set up the JS code needed to build that website.

More about the kernel

Linus took pride in how it’s now easier to build the kernel. However, he admits that the documentation could be better, even with make xconfig. From personal experience, I agree. When I select an option, it’s difficult for me to know what else it might affect. Follow-up: As a Tech Writer, I want to find the Perl script that he references to identify Linux kernel documentation maintainers.

And yes, he runs his systems on the latest developmental kernel – and sometimes kernel changes render his systems unbootable. He then talks about filing bug reports, using the same process as everyone else. And he’ll bisect commits to identify the problem.

Afterwards, we had cake!