why is the symbol for linux a penguin?

Here is Linus Torvalds' explanation of "Why a penguin"

http://www.linux.org/info/penguin.html

I also once read that Linus was attacked by a penguin at a petting zoo.

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Steve Stites

thank you for your replies.. all of them made for interesting reading, as different as they all might be. i think i'm going to go with Linus being attacked by a penguin at a petting zoo, because that one is just funny.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in <General> and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

Don't believe what you read on the internet. The real truth behind the penguin is that Linus was raised by penguins.

Don't believe the previous explanations. The penguin was actually a shapeshifting alien who taught Linus how to create the linux kernel. This IS the truth, the other stories are cover-ups.

Don't believe the previous explanations. The real truth is that we come directly from penguins, not, as some crazy pseudo-scientists claim, from apes.

Don't believe the previous explanations. The real truth is that I suggested it to Linnie (you know, Linus Torvalds) when he was desperately searching around for a mascot.

It's a bit more nuanced than that. Remember, my first screen name was /dev/tux (as a pun on tuxedo) and that got sort of an in-joke amongst the more casually dressed hackers of that time. They wondered why I'd want to look like a penguin. I told them I thought all Linux hackers should wear tuxedo's to one-up the suits
Things really started moving when harishankar convinced Linnie it would make sense if we'd collectively be known as 'the penguins'. Well anyway, it never caught on. RMS was very much against formal dress like that and things got ugly in a sense. Things where said that shouldn't have been said. And I had to change my nick because of the rumours.

Most of this is forgotten now, but the penguin mascot remains.

It wasn't a penguin that attacked Linus, it was Bill Gates in a penguin suit on his way to a fancy dress party.
Steve Ballmer was there too, dressed as a chimpanzee (although nobody could tell he was in costume), shouting: "Go on, Bill, peck him again!"

Don't believe any of these S/slackers . . . it's just that the penguin got away from the polar bear and that's what Linus saw first. . . . . . . . .



Keep going with this thread - let's see what people come up with!

It's to differentiate it from the BSDs. Because Penguins have no hands they are incapable of masturbation, a subject that is mention frequently enough by the great man to give cause for concern. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/706950

No wonder those little devils are always red in the face. Their wrists must get tired too.

Linus managed to be bitten by a penguin when Andrew Tridgell took him to a zoo in Australia. Maybe the Finns eat too much fish and the penguin thought he was a herring? Hmm... there's an idea for the next April's release of "planet penguin racer" - replace the herring with Linus.