Most people agree that this E-mail is what started the Linux ball rolling. Ever since this time, people have jumped onto the Linux bandwagon/religion. Here is the first message:

From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: What would you like to see most in minix?
Summary: small poll for my new operating system
Message-ID: <1991Aug25.205708.9541@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: 25 Aug 91 20:57:08 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

Hello everybody out there using minix -
I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional
like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since April, and is starting
to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS
resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical
reasons) among other things). I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and
things seem to work. This implies that I'll get something practical within a few
months, and I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions
are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-)

Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs.
It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never
will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(.