Tux/Citable Version

Tux the penguin, the Linux mascot

Tux the penguin is the official logo, and cartoon mascot, for the Linux computer operating system. The character was first drawn in 1996 by Larry Ewing.

An early sketch of Tux

Tux originated as the result of a discussion on the USENET "Linux kernel" mailing list. On May 1, 1996, Matt Hartley began a thread titled "Linux logo", which included an image by David Christiansen showing the planet Earth as seen from outer space, along with the captions "LINUX" and "Take your computer to another dimension." The next day Alan Cox posted a message suggesting that the LINUX logo should be "a picture of the BSD daemon" — the logo for another open source operating system — "flat out on the floor with stars around its head and a penguin in boxing gloves standing on top." In response, Mark Lehrer, posted that because Microsoft's Windows 95 — then the dominant commercial PC operating system — instead of FreeBSD was LINUX's real competition, the logo should instead show a penguin smashing a window. Alan Clucas replied that these two ideas should be combined, with a LINUX logo victorious over both its counterparts.

At this point Linus Torvalds, the software engineer who had initiated the development of Linux, unhappy with the idea of officially endorsing the mocking of other operating systems, posted his favorite penguin image, and requested that someone with artistic skills design a logo using a similar image under an appropriate license, while emphatically stating that this concept was final. (The model image referred to by Torvalds is still available as of April 13th, 2007 from its original location on the University of Helsinki's FTP server at:[1].)

Dale Scheetz posted a prototype drawing, which showed a penguin holding up the Earth. Torvalds replied that the penguin did not appear strong enough to hoist an entire planet, and in fact looked like it was in imminent danger of being squashed. He went on to describe the penguin that he envisioned — a cute, cuddly animal, sitting after eating a grand feast of herring, content and smiling after a small burp. The penguin was not to be fat, but instead gorged with fish. Torvalds later noted that he was not looking for a "Linux Corporate Image", but for something fun that could be extensively modified but still recognizable. He has often expressed his affinity for penguins, once jokingly claiming that after being bitten by a ferocious penguin he developed a disease called "penguinitis", which "makes you stay awake at nights just thinking about penguins and feeling great love towards them". He claimed to have had a similar experience while visiting the Canberra zoo with Andrew Tridgell, where a small pigmy penguin nibbled on his finger.

Larry Ewing drew the original version of Tux on his 486 DX2/50 computer running Linux, using version 0.54 of The GIMP graphics program. Because his monitor was an 8-bit display with limited graphics capabilities, the final smoothness was rendered using software on an SGI Crimson workstation. (A complete description of the methods Ewing used is on his website at: [2])

The new mascot still needed a name. Humorously, one of the earliest suggestions, from Henning Schmiedehausen, was to call the penguin "Homer", because of its resemblance to the television character Homer Simpson. As a joke, Tux was later re-drawn by Anton Johansson as an image of Homer morphed into a penguin. There were also some early references to the penguin as "Linnie". However, "Tux", coined by James Hughes, soon caught on. This name had a two-fold meaning, both as an acronym for Torvalds Unix, and as a pun based on the shortening of tuxedo, which penguins are often said to be wearing.

A Tux the penguin doll

Tux has appeared in several magazines and television broadcasts, and has also appeared in 3D form as a plush toy (see photo at right), articles of clothing, stickers, and other similar paraphernalia. Tux has also been used in many home and small business projects, such as fliers and newsletters, because the image is one of the more popular search results for "penguin" on Google Images. Tux has also been portrayed as a symbol of a person's geekiness, and can often be found in computer gaming magazines, lying on a user's desk even while the person pictured is running Microsoft Windows. Tux has also appeared in open source video games including Tux Racer (also known as 'Planet Penguin Racer') and TuxKart, as well as in several educational tools, such as Tux Paint.

Tux is not a mere static logo. From the beginning, the image was meant to be played with and re-drawn in a "goofy" manner. Popular versions of Tux include that in the Crystal icon set, the Slackware logo, which features Tux smoking a pipe, and that of the PaX security algorithm, which displays Tux as a viking. The Crystal Tux has been shown depicting him as many things, such as a skateboarder and a ninja. Two female penguins, known as Gown and Penny, have also appeared in several open source games, but they have no official bindings to the Linux kernel. Tux was also made into a 25" Lego model by a talented sculptor named Eric Harshbarger.

Related Topics

• The BSD Daemon, the mascot of the various Berkeley Software Distribution releases
• Wilber, the mascot of The GIMP

Subtopics

Larry Ewing

External links

• ccpenguin.jpg Torvalds' original penguin image. At his recommendation, Tux is based on this image
• Larry Ewing's description of how he drew Tux