Linus Torvalds gives a tour of his home office | Hacker News Reader

Linus Torvalds gives a tour of his home office

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177 pointspajju79 comments

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...

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

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/1999-03-30/

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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? :)

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

You are not messy enough.

Notes:

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

I'd say his old desk is messy, not dirty.

Airduster is one way to take off the dirt without having to take off the books and whatever.

- he's a bit too fat

Maybe the desk will get rid of that though

he looks healthy and beautiful to me.

sure, that does not contradict my statement

Appeared to be using Gnome 3 as well.

  - wears sandals with socks

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

> 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.

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

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

It is also common in the Pacific Northwest (where Linus lives) and the Midwest. Basically places where you can't wear sandals all year round.

yes, at home. This is a good way to save on heating bills.

Which is surprisingly practical and comfortable in warm places.

I guess Portland summers are warmish.

My God Linus is Polish.

-uses terminal windows with white backgrounds

I noticed this as well. It's funny, usually my first reaction to seeing someone with a white editor background is "noob".

Exactly. Everyone knows that black background with bright green text improves hacking skills by 23%.

I have always found it pretty interesting that he has the most uninteresting setups.

well yeah, that's the minimalist "KISS" spirit... I guess when you're so much dedicated to what you do, you don't really have time or will to care about details.

I don't think he cares about KISS philosophy. I think he has found what he likes to do and that helps him stay focus and cut noise while most meddle with productivity techniques.

-walks at 1mph for optimal browser closing

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.

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

I still wish it was dual-bootbable.

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

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

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

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

Stop reading the clickbait. If everything that has happened in your office was posted online, you could probably be made to look like a much worse monster.

Every single time one of those has been posted here on HN, there's been ignored backstory to the outburst. Usually there's a fair amount of polite conversation before it, then he gets frustrated and vents. If you actually poke around at what he says day-to-day, it's really not the way he is - it's just clickbait articles that paint him that way, being sure to present him out of context.

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

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

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

Git is named after him: "I have a habit of naming things after myself".

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.

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.

> for some reason people keep sending me penguins

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

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

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

He uses only one monitor?

http://i.imgur.com/FFE1ysu.png

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

I know right? More screen real estate doesn't translate into productivity every time. I was aghast (and subsequently enlightened) when I heard Rob Pike saying he uses a 11" Macbook Air. That was actually the same computer I had at the time and definitely contributed to not worrying about throwing money at a larger screen.

Then again, Rib Pike probably doesn't work in eclipse.

In this article[0] Rob talks a bit about his setup.

[0]: http://rob.pike.usesthis.com

It says he uses a Macbook Air but doesn't mention whether or not he hooks up an external monitor sometimes.

I was also surprised. I guess you can only really look at one monitor at a time, and switching workspaces with keyboard shortcuts can be about as fast as turning your head.

Even better with MacBook: four-finger swipe to the side, done.

Blasphemy!

Ctrl+arrow all the way.

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/

In my case, an extra display is a huge help when I need to refer to a doc/spec/tutorial etc.

I've noticed that two monitors are helpful in web development. I typically have the browser on one monitor and the IDE on another.

I used to find this really helpful, but with LiveReload it doesn't make much difference. I always swipe back to my browser before the change has been injected, so I'm not saving any time with 2 monitors.

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.

> 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.

> 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.

Don't give my boss any ideas. ;)

Interesting. I've always worked from a laptop (first a 13" now a 15"). I got to use a 27" Apple display earlier this year for 1 week. I found it hard to get used to. With a bigger display keeping the light from reflecting off it was more difficult, I had to move the mouse so much further to do things, and I physical had to move my head to view the different areas of the screen (whereas with the laptop I can just move my eyes). Happy to be back with the laptop.

I've a similar zen in moving from a 2-monitor desktop setup to working off my 13" MacBook Air. It's been a huge benefit to my productivity. I make heavy use of Spaces, so when I'm engrossed in a task, it's all I'm doing. I'm also pretty ruthless about closing windows/tabs and quitting apps, so I typically don't have that much stuff running at any given time. My overall stress level day-to-day has gone down significantly, and I attribute a large part of that to the amount of clutter I've removed from my average context of operation.

Generally I find that two monitors is useful so I can have a browser or android emulator open in one and the code open in another and easily switch between them... I'm guessing Linus doesn't do a lot of UI development so it doesn't really matter for him.

Same here - I like having my IDE full screen on my main monitor and my browser or emulator on the other.

I recently had the brilliant idea to try three monitors, figuring that if two are good then three would be better. This only lasted about a week, though. I found it just to be way too much mouse movement (yes, I use a mouse, get over it!) going all the way from monitor #1 to monitor #3.

So my observation is that monitors are like martinis, one isn't enough and three is too many.

When working on console games I've always found it useful to have one screen (in this case, a TV) dedicated to your program, and 2 left for use with your PC. When working on PC stuff I've also used a similar setup with a second PC as well (with its own keyboard and mouse, no Synergy/KVM/etc.). So I was expecting having 3 plugged into a single PC to be just as useful! But I had the same experience as you. I used it for about two weeks before I had to admit that the extra monitor was just one too many.

I do wonder if it's just the aspect ratio of the desktop area though. I feel like if I had two landscape monitors on top of one another, and one portrait to the side, that would be more manageable.

(The horizontal arrangement of monitors is more common, but actually I think the vertical one is much better. I currently have my laptop sat under my main monitor, and it works very well. With a horizontal arrangement I've always found myself ending up with a preferred monitor straight ahead and spare less-used one(s) to this side. After all, who wants to keep having to turn their neck? But with them stacked on top of one another, all you need do is glance up and down, and they're all equally useful.)

I used to have two monitors but then I discovered Xmonad and lrealized that virtual desktops for me are much better than a second monitor. The biggest pkus is that i have the monitor right in front of me and don't have to turn my head to the side.

I used xmonad s.t. each screen had its own virtual desktop (until I got fed up of its slowness and Haskell's cabal package management).

At least in my case, my screens are usually very centered and I sit far back enough that I never turn my head. shrug

I was offered a 2nd monitor several times and refused because you put less strain on your neck when you look straight ahead. I imagine this could even be more of a problem with a walking desk. Apart from that, more incoming signals don't make you work better.

If I get the choice, I prefer one large monitor over two smaller ones, simply for the reason that you can put windows in the center of your visual space. Besides, for some reason windows often seem to pop up unexpectedly on the wrong screen for me, whenever I use two screens.

On the other hand: given the major drawbacks of a sedentary lifestyle, I wouldn't be surprised if having multiple monitors and switching between them, which makes your neck move, would actually be better then keeping your neck still the whole time. Worth investigating..

No matter how many monitors you're using, if you don't take breaks and move around, it's gonna be bad for you.

Who needs debuggers when you have OpenGrok and printf()? ;)

It looks like he probably has the monitor on his desk available to connect to that computer also, but they won't both fit on the standing desk.

I have three 24 inch monitors connected to my desktop computer.

The middle one is where I do 99% of my work.

The left one is where I usually have a YouTube or Netflix video up distracting me.

The right one is where I drag a window over for 20 seconds while I rearrange stuff. Most of the time it's 100% empty.

My brain is certainly a single-core processor.

TL,DR: One is surprisingly sufficient.

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