On the 9th of June 1996, in his announcement of Linux kernel 2.0, Linus made three statements with number one being of interest here "Linux now has a logo thanks to the artistic talents of Larry Ewing, and one version ( the "pretty" version) is included with the kernel. Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen an angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100 MPH. They'd be a lot more careful about what they say if they had."

And now copying from the book, Just for Fun, by Linus Torvalds and David Diamond, pages 139 and 140, is this explanation.

"The penguin was my idea," says Tove.(ed's note, Tove is Linus's wife and of course, Linus is the father of the Linux Kernel) "Linus was trying to find a symbol for Linux because people were asking, 'Shouldn't there be a symbol?' He was thinking of things he'd seen." The Linux companies had their own symbols. One of the companies had a pink triangle as its symbol. But I knew that was the international symbol for gays, so I told him that had already been taken. He said he would like to have something nice, something sympathetic.

I though about penguins. Linus had been bitten by a fairy penguin at a zoo in Australia. He likes to pet things. He's always poking at stuff like rattlesnakes. Those penguins at the zoo were about one foot high, and he just reached into the cage to pet one of them. He kind of played with his fingers as if they were fish. The penguin came at him, bit him, noticed he was not a fish. He got bitten by a penguin but he liked it anyway. I got the feeling he was sold on penguins after that . He wanted to see penguins wherever it was possible.

"So when he started looking for a symbol, I said, 'Why don't you have a penguin because you fell in love with those penguins?' He said, 'Okay, I'll think about it.'"

"No, it was not her idea," he says. "she's wrong."

The story, according to Linus, is that Tove may in fact have vaguely mentioned penguins at some early stage, it was in a conversation with two high-ranking Linux types that the icy creatures were first seriously considered as the operating system's official mascot.

Tove has her take on this version. "He thought it wasn't a good idea after all, because it was my idea. He went on thinking about a possible symbol. Then we were in Boston with Maddog and Henry Hall. They started talking about the symbol. I said to them, 'What about a penguin. Do you think it's nice?' They said yes. I think that made Linus think it might be a good idea after all."

"Hall said he knew an artist who could draw it for him, but that never happened. The next thing I knew, Linus had asked on the Internet if there were people who wanted to send in pictures of penguins." He chose a version by Larry Ewing, a graphic artist who works at the Institute for Scientific Computing at Texas A&M University.

But this wasn't to be just any penguin. Above all, Linus wanted one that looked happy, as if it had just polished off a pitcher of beer and then had the best sex of its life. Even beyond that stipulation, he wanted one that was distinct. Hence, while all other penguins have black beaks and feet, those features are orange on the Linux mascot, making it look almost like a penguin whose father was a duck. As if Daffy Duck got a little Kwazy(sp) on a cruise to Antarctica and had a wild one-night-stand with some native fowl."

And now you know why and how our logo became, "Tux" the penguin!