Linus talks about Apple laptops, Linux distributions, his work

Most valuable thing for me in that interview was this pearl on how a successful person raises kids. We do the time outs, but I had never thought of the bathroom. Great idea.<p>&#62; I think the kids have grown up really well, and I don’t think it hurt them that we had rules in the family that were fairly strictly enforced (usually with a five-minute timeout in the bathroom). We had a very strict “no whining” rule, for example, and I’ve seen kids that should definitely have been brought up with a couple of rules like that.<p>&#62; That said, maybe they’re just naturally good kids. I don’t remember the last time I sent them to the bathroom (but it’s still a joke in our family: “If you don’t behave, you’ll spend the rest of the day in the bathroom”)

My takeaway was this:<p>"what’s even more interesting than improving a piece of software, is to improve the <i>way</i> we write and improve software. Changing the process of making software has sometimes been some of the most painful parts of software development (because we so easily get used to certain models), but that has also often been the most rewarding parts. It is, after all, why “git” came to be, for example."<p>Exactly! with so many frameworks, platforms, languages and what not floating around this is getting more and more important. Yet, AFAIK, truly innovative approaches like Light Table are rare.

You know, it's not in the same class as a macbook air, but my Thinkpad x61s has been my tiny performant champ for 4 years now. Roughly the size of the netbooks of the time, but tons more power than a netbook and the initial macbook air means it's still powerful enough for anything I throw at it. The one bummer has been screen resolution, but I still get 6 hours battery life on it (I did have to replace the battery once), and it was just a bit over three pounds with the larger battery.

Unix is great because everything is a file. Except when it's not so great. By far the best part of the article:<p>"The one really memorable “Oh sh-t” moment was literally very early on in Linux development, when I realized that I had auto-dialed my main harddisk when I <i>meant</i> to auto-dial the university dial-in lines over the modem. And in the process wiped out my then Minix setup by writing AT-commands to the disk that understandably didn’t respond the way the autodialling script expected (“AT commands” is just the traditional Hayes modem control instruction set).<p>That’s the point where I ended up switching over to Linux entirely, so it was actually a big deal for Linux development. But that was back in 1991."

They seem to completely ignore the existence of ultrabooks. They say that nobody is making thin and light laptops other than Apple, but my thin, quiet, slightly lighter, cheaper, and higher-resolution Zenbook would beg to differ.

"What do you want to tell people that no one has ever bothered to ask you?"<p>"Oh, nothing really..." <i>proceeds to give the best answer in the interview</i>

Upvoted because the interviewer asked penetrating informed questions.

&#62; I guess I won’t have to worry about the kids education any more<p>Isn't Linus already a millionaire through the shares Redhat gave him a while ago?

I have some good story too. Once I met one of the top apache foundation guy in Sri Lanaka while he is in Apache Road Show Asia. So I asked him why do you use Apple (a mac book) and try to promote apache (he promote FOSS while using anti-FOSS tools)<p>He said me, Laptop is just another tool for me. I don't want to buy a IBM and install Linux and work hard for get it worked. He also said that, time he saved is more worthy than $2000 dollars spend my his mac-book

LT using an Air surprises me because of the lack of screen real estate. I dislike coding at 1280x800 (but I'm usually using Eclipse these days). Heavily customizing Compiz has made 1680x1050 bearable with Eclipse, but I prefer the 1920x1200 dual monitor setup.<p>LT would probably say something akin to, "real men don't use IDEs."<p>I'll go for super portable when they put 1920x1200 into a 12" inch screen. (I won't have issues with reading at that density.)

I agree with him on hardware. Except I use a 13" Vaio Z.<p>Which also happen to compile Linux about 5 times faster than his mac - cold and hot. And also be lighter. And it's silent (except during compile). I really mean silent. Can't hear it - at all. And has a better screen. Yada yada. So it doesn't look as nice as the mba but its not that bad. And the inside, uuh.

The press release says:<p>&#62; <i>The free availability of Linux on the Web swiftly caused a chain-reaction leading to further development and fine-tuning worth the equivalent of 73,000 man-years. […] Linus Torvalds’ achievements have had a great impact on shared software development, networking and the openness of the web, making it accessible for millions, if not billions.</i><p>Wait a minute, shouldn't we credit <i>Stallman</i> for this chain reaction? Without the GPL, Linux would probably have stayed proprietary, and unsuccessful. Without the GNU system, computing would probably be much less open than it is now (I don't know what the impact on BSD would have been, though).<p>It seems that saying "Linux" instead of "GNU/Linux" has a significant impact after all. Or did Stallman got this very prize before Torlvalds?

Supplementary interview with Linus from the BBC: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17784495" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17784495</a>

I love my Thinkpad E325. Very quiet (although not entirely), small, light and good battery life. AMD Fusion is really nice.<p>I could probably use an SSD in it, I guess.

This tidbit from the interviewer made me laugh:<p>&#62; Surely there’s an opportunity there for the global Linux community to influence laptop design for the betterment of everyone?<p>Yes, because Linux-influenced hardware has worked out so well in the past. Do we really want to reenact the Android catastrophe in the laptop space?