Tux is the name of the official Linux mascot. Created by Larry Ewing in 1996, he is a funny-looking little penguin. The idea that the Linux kernel mascot was a penguin came from Linus Torvalds himself, creator of the Linux kernel. It is said that when he was a child he was stung by a penguin; also since childhood he showed great sympathy for these animals.

Legend has it that he was born out of the penguin obsession of Linus Torvards, the creator of Linux, when he was bitten by one of them. What is true in all this? It is true that during a visit to the Canberra Zoo, in the 90s, Torvalds was bitten by a penguin. For a while he joked that he had been infected with Penguinitis, a rare disease that made you wake up at night and you couldn’t stop thinking about penguins.

Although this anecdote is true, it was not him who came up with using a penguin as a Linux mascot, but Alan Cox, one of the developers of the Linux kernel. Larry Ewing was in charge of drawing the penguin using GIMP, in 1996. It was Linus Torvalds himself who proposed his final appearance, by asking Ewing to be inspired by the penguin from the Creature Comforts series, from the mythical company Ardman, creators of Shaun the Sheep and Wallace & Gromit.

But this was not easy as some Linux software designers did not like that the operating system was represented by such a cute mascot because Linux products looked like toys, rather than professional software. Robin Miller, editor of Slashdot, was one of those who was against the mascot, until a funny anecdote occurred to him. He went to a university to give a lecture on Linux, but couldn’t find the right classroom. Then he observed that two girls got out of a van parked on campus carrying a stuffed animal of the Tux penguin and that is how our dear charismatic Penguin was born.

Check also:
Unix – The father of our beloved Linux
Most striking Linux Distros that we can find


Deja un comentario

Tu dirección de correo electrónico no será publicada. Los campos obligatorios están marcados con *