
Linus Torvalds gives a tour of his home office - pajju
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuS-3HSnpq4
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sampo
About that sword at the end: Finland (and Sweden) have this old tradition that
PhD's have a hat and a sword [1] as part of the academic dress [2].

[1] [http://www.lut.fi/documents/10633/139156/opiskelu-
tohtoriohj...](http://www.lut.fi/documents/10633/139156/opiskelu-
tohtoriohjelmat-paakuva-615x295-tohtorinhattu-miekat.jpg)

[2]
[http://www.helsinki.fi/filtdkpromootio2010/_Y5I6060.JPG](http://www.helsinki.fi/filtdkpromootio2010/_Y5I6060.JPG)

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duncanawoods
I liked that, what a nice guy. This is the dilbert he has framed on his wall:

[http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1999-03-29/](http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1999-03-29/)

[http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1999-03-30/](http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1999-03-30/)

~~~
drivingmenuts
He looked like he was barely restraining himself from killing the cameraman.

That is not a guy who's comfortable on camera.

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maximumoverload
This seems to be the original Linux Foundation video, with way more views.
(But exactly the same content.)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSgUPqygAww](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSgUPqygAww)

~~~
icpmacdo
Thanks for posting this the links to the Greg Kroah-Hartman workspace were not
on the original link.

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mattattaque
He came and spoke at my university a couple months back. He was a really nice
personable guy, especially considering how many people wanted to chat with
him. It was very surreal being so close to someone acting so normal with the
realization that he created so much of what you use everyday. The entire CS
department felt like they'd just seen God.

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socialist_coder
Another productive night owl succumbs to the gravity of the nuclear family.
Funny that it even happens to people like Linus.

~~~
tekacs
Since we only get one life to live, might well be worth getting to try out a
few different lifestyles throughout it? After years of night productivity,
maybe one wants to try something new? :)

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mattivc
It's comforting to see that someone who is as accomplished as Linus Torvalds,
is even messier than me.

~~~
nabla9
You are not messy enough.

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seanewest
Notes:

    
    
      -uses the web browser for email
      -uses standing desk with treadmill
      -old desk is very dirty
      -doesn't like light in his room

~~~
martco

      - wears sandals with socks

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zo1
It's a European thing. And actually very comfortable if you can get those
little things between your toes while your socks are on.

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Dewie
> It's a European thing.

Pff. Socks in sandals is basically considered a fashion-sin by most people.
But I can only speak for my part of Europe.

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nileshtrivedi
It's a way to filter out those people who consider fashion important. ;-)

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Dewie
"Most people find it a fashion-sin", as in _most people_ , including those who
don't even care about Fashion.

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sswezey
It's nice to see someone as important as Linus just act so normal, as if he
didn't create some of the most important software in the world. I really like
that he doesn't espouse minimalist, nitty-gritty Linux distros, but rather
just likes stuff that works.

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ChikkaChiChi
The laptop on his desk is his Pixel. Still IMO the best piece laptop ever
made.

I still wish it was dual-bootbable.

~~~
jokoon
I would trademark "dual-bootbable" right now if I were you

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neilunadkat12
He seems so nice in person.. Looking at the way he rips people apart when they
write bad code, this Linus is lovable..

~~~
sumedh
He seems like a goofy old man, I was expecting a meaner, pissed off version.

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Udo
Old, seriously? The guy is in his mid-forties and you make him sound like he
lives in a retirement home.

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coder23
I wonder if his virtual office( backup, code, projects ) is more organized.

~~~
abhinavk
He uses Git IIRC. In fact, he invented Git.

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metaobject
Well, I've seen some extremely disorganized git repos.

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tempestn
The stack of hard drives definitely got a chuckle out of me. Which of us
hasn't, at some point, had an old hard drive or two sitting around for exactly
that reason? You don't want to wipe the old drive until you've got the new one
up and running, and at that point there are more interesting things to do, and
the old drive isn't even connected anymore and... meh, add it to the stack.

~~~
davidgerard
I used to put a cp -rp of the old drive onto the new drive. I think I have
three or four drives deep by now, back to my ancient 386 running Windows 95.

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zhng
> for some reason people keep sending me penguins

i would be careful. there could be cameras in there.

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mmphosis
I couldn't agree more about the old "garbage" lying around.

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e40
I was surprised he doesn't use Emacs instead of a terminal.

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wfjackson
He uses only one monitor?

[http://i.imgur.com/FFE1ysu.png](http://i.imgur.com/FFE1ysu.png)

Perhaps it lets him stay focused. He also doesn't use a debugger if I remember
correctly.

~~~
amarraja
Aaron Swartz offered an interesting insight into this on The Setup [1]

 _I don 't have any extra displays. When I was little, I'd read Adam Engst
talk about how great a second monitor was and lust after one, but never could
bring myself to buy one. When I went to work for Condé Nast they gave us all
nice big external Dell monitors and I found that I just couldn't get in the
habit of using two screens. Everyone talks about how great it is to have more
screen real estate, but apparently for what I do it doesn't really matter. I
spend nearly all of my time on the computer staring at a block of text of one
sort or another (emails, web pages, code) and no matter how big my screen is,
I can't read more than a couple words at a time. Everything else on the screen
is mostly a distraction. But maybe I'd feel differently if I wasn't so
nearsighted._

I've found working on just my 15" laptop leads to much less procrastination
(sometimes).

[1] [http://aaron.swartz.usesthis.com/](http://aaron.swartz.usesthis.com/)

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clarry
I also find having lots of stuff open distracting. One screen and virtual
desktops so the browser, irc and other crap can be kept off the code view
really helps me focus. Colour noise also distracts me, and browsers really are
good at throwing a lot of it at you. When I'm coding, my display is
effectively monochrome with dark grey terminals and lighter grey text with a
warm reddish orange cast.

As far as coding goes, living in a monastery with a laggy internet connection,
using a slow netbook with 11" screen was one of my most productive times.

~~~
abhinavk
> As far as coding goes, living in a monastery with a laggy internet
> connection, using a slow netbook with 11" screen was one of my most
> productive times.

That's one of the most amazing things I have heard in a while.

