20年前的8月25日，一名芬兰的本科生向Minix邮件列表发出了以下文字。是的，这是Linux第一次为世人所知。也可以说，是它的生日。

　　From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)

　　Newsgroups: comp.os.minix

　　Subject: What would you like to see most in minix?

　　Summary: small poll for my new operating system

　　Message-ID: <1991Aug25.205708.9541@klaava.Helsinki.FI>

　　Date: 25 Aug 91 20:57:08 GMT

　　Organization: University of Helsinki

　　Hello everybody out there using minix-

　　I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby，won’t be big and

　　professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing

　　since april, and is starting to get ready. I’d like any feedback on

　　things people like/dislike in minix， as my OS resembles it somewhat

　　(same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons)

　　among other things).

　　I’ve currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40)， and things seem to work.

　　This implies that I’ll get something practical within a few months, and

　　I’d like to knowwhat features most people would want. Any suggestions

　　are welcome, but I won’t promise I’ll implement them :-)

　　Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

　　PS. Yes – it’s free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs.

　　It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc)， and it probably never

　　will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that’s all I have :-(.