Building the PERFECT Linux PC with Linus Torvalds

Arguably, there can be no perfect Linux

PC. But what we can build is the perfect

Linux PC for the creator of Linux, who

>> there can be only one.

[screaming]

[groaning]

>> Or hear me out, you guys could just

build a PC together.

>> Oh.

>> Oh, okay. That could work.

>> That could work. For the folks too young

to catch the Highlander reference, the

joke is that we are both Lionus and this

can only end with one of us losing our

heads. My mind is blown. So maybe that

counts. Guys, when I shot my shot asking

the original tech Lionus to come and do

a collab with us, I had no idea what

he'd say. I mean, he's kind of a big

deal, known for minor contributions to

modern technology like Git and the Linux

kernel, but he's here, the granddaddy of

the operating systems that power

everything from the Android phone in

your hand to data centers around the

world to more recently your new gaming

PC. All thanks to the incredible work of

open source developers and corporate

sponsors like Valve. And I get to build

a computer WITH THEM AND ASK HIM SOME OF

YOUR QUESTIONS. And you think I'm the

awkward one.

>> Sorry. Look, I know that fangirling does

make you a little bit uncomfortable.

>> Yes.

>> But you are here right now in my studio

and this is so cool. So, I'll tell you

what. If you could just quickly sign my

copy of this and then I'll settle down.

I promise. Okay.

How cool is this, you guys?

He made it out to fake Lionus

from the real one. This is officially

more valuable to me than this message

from our sponsor.

[laughter]

>> What a segway is the one. It's got the

abs you need

from those other guys.

>> You haven't written anything more recent

autobiographically, so I went with this

and the Wikipedia page. So that's about

>> Yeah. No, that's fine. I mean, this was

literally what we talked about earlier

that I'll do anything once, like,

>> right,

>> come here. [laughter] Uh,

>> I really enjoyed it.

>> Okay. No, I enjoyed the writing part. I

do want to point out the David Diamond

part. I I actually wanted him to have

the same font size as my name, but

>> Oh, really?

>> the publisher said no.

>> They were right.

>> It was very much a collab.

>> He made that very clear in the parts

that the italicized parts that are kind

of his version of the telling of the

story. But I really enjoyed this and uh

I'm looking forward to hopefully asking

you questions that are not thoroughly

covered by your own autobiographical

works but

>> from 25 years ago.

>> I was going to ask you that is one of my

questions is do you feel as detached

from what you wrote then as I might be

from something that I wrote when I was

19?

>> I actually don't remember what I wrote.

>> Oh, okay. So then you might have

forgotten the meaning of life for

instance. Oh yeah, because that's in

there.

>> That's in there.

>> Yeah. It's entertainment by the way

>> and uh and and sex is a perfect example.

>> It started for survival

>> and then it became for uh society

>> and then also entertainment.

>> Say yeah the entertainment part.

>> No, you were quite explicit in both

meanings.

>> Okay.

>> Anything once. Anything once, right?

>> We're not done yet. So you still have to

do more.

[laughter]

>> When you say lionus, just to clarify,

say a false linus or something.

>> Fake liners. Yeah. Yeah,

>> today I can live with that. Now, you did

an interview with ZDNet a number of

years back

>> about your daily driver computer which

you built yourself and we actually

replicated that build. What did you

think of our video?

>> Oh, the one I never saw.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh yeah, sorry.

>> I knew that was going to happen. And so

the next thing I was going to ask you is

what about this video? Are you going to

watch this video? I probably won't

because I will be feeling way too

self-conscious to to actually watch it,

but I might have to just because I will

probably get emailed comments and then I

will have to wonder about the comments.

And

>> I love that comments to you are email.

>> It's the only media I use. Yeah. I don't

do I don't do the whole social media

thing. So, it's text for my family or

email for everybody else.

>> Right. So, I can text you. You actually

can text me now. Yeah,

>> that's actually pretty cool. So, you

know what? Even though I am not one of

the couple of dozen Torvoldses on the

planet, right?

>> I also have a madeup last name.

>> So, my mom broke from her family,

changed her name,

>> and then got my dad to agree to use her

name for me.

>> Okay. Okay. So, I'm also Lionus with

also a last name with no genealogy

whatsoever attached to it, which I

thought was a weird thing for us to have

in common.

>> Strange. Yeah. I mean, there's there's

literally maybe 20 Torbtes in the whole

world because yeah, my grandfather made

that name up for very similar reasons.

>> This is so much fun. You are actually

doing amazing. It's nothing like that

night that you barely slept before your

first major speaking engagement,

>> right? You really did read the book.

>> Of course.

>> Good on you.

>> What? You think I would fake it?

>> I don't know.

>> Shame.

>> Shame.

>> Shame on people who collaborate with

people and don't actually read their

book ahead of time.

>> Well, I didn't watch your videos, so

>> that's fine. [laughter]

I am the beta linest today, so I fully

accept that that's going to be what

happens. Um, what else is going to

happen is we are actually going to build

a computer at some point here. And if

you watched our last video, it's fine

you didn't, but if you have your

computer, then this may be familiar to

you. We are starting with an AMD Thread

Ripper. This time, a 9960X.

This is a 24 core 48thread CPU that I

imagine is going to absolutely rip it up

for writing emails.

>> It's not the only thing I do, but I do

spend a lot of time actually reading

emails more than writing them because

>> you can fit so much email in this bad

boy. But of course you do have some high

performance demanding needs like say for

example

>> yeah I do compile the kernel a lot. So

uh it's part of my test requirements

that when I merge other people's code

because I don't code myself very much

anymore. One of the things I do between

every single merge is compile the whole

kernel with every module I can. And

that's where you want something fairly

powerful. And I mean, I'm sure, you

know, Nvidia is probably working on a

way to make code compilation GPU

accelerated, but is CPU still the way to

go?

>> Yeah. And I can use as many cores as

they can give me.

>> Why did we cheap out on him?

>> Oh, because I also I actually I mean,