Linus Torvalds is a Finnish American software engineer most famous for his work on the Linux Operating System. Torvalds attended the University of Helsinki between the years 1988 and 1996 earning a master's degree in computer science. He was a programmer for pretty much his entire life after college. He made a clone of pac-man called cool man. He accepted a job in California which eventually turned into where he started to develop Linux. Linux is a type of Operating System that first came into play in October of 1991. Linux is used on most supercomputers and is used on the 44 fastest super computers in the world. The biggest difference between Linux and what most people use today, which would be windows and iOS operating systems, is that it is developed collaboratively. So no one company is responsible for the development and ongoing support of it, unlike windows which is owned by Mircrosoft. While Windows and iOS are usually found on personal computers, Linux is mostly found on PDA's, GPS's and other devices in those categories. Another reason why someone may prefer Linux to Windows is that Linux is free, or very cheap to purchase, while Windows is on the more expensive side. 



https://www.linux.com/learn/new-user-guides/376-linux-is-everywhere-an-overview-of-the-linux-operating-system

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds#cite_note-citLinus-2
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000575.htm