17 September 2026 marks 35 years since version 0.01 of the Linux kernel, a milestone in the history of modern software.

The project had been started by Linus Torvalds, then a student at the University of Helsinki, as an operating-system kernel for computers compatible with the Intel 386 architecture.

Several weeks earlier, on 25 August 1991, Torvalds had announced in a Usenet discussion group that he was working on a free operating system, modestly describing it as a personal project.

Version 0.01, dated 17 September, was extremely limited compared with the system that developed later. It was not a complete product and required other software components to be usable.

The code was made available to other programmers, who began testing, correcting and expanding the project.

Linux was later distributed under the GNU General Public License, allowing the code to be studied, modified and redistributed under the licence’s terms.

The combination of the Linux kernel with tools developed in the GNU ecosystem became the basis of numerous distributions used on computers and servers.

During the following decades, Linux became essential to internet infrastructure, data centres, supercomputers, embedded systems and Android-based phones.

The project’s success cannot be reduced to the work of one person: it was built through contributions from an international community of developers, companies and organisations.

Thirty-five years after version 0.01, the Linux kernel remains a major example of how collaborative development can transform global digital infrastructure.

Image: Krd / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Linus Torvalds at LinuxCon Europe, 15 October 2014. Archive photograph, not from 1991. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: Historic Linux kernel versions | The Linux Kernel Archives; Notes for linux release 0.01 | kernel.org; Anniversary of First Linux Kernel Release | Linux Foundation.