Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Andrew S. "Andy" Tanenbaum (born 1944) is the head of Department of Computer Systems, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam in the Netherlands. He teaches courses about Computer Organization and Operating Systems. He received his undergraduate degree from MIT and his doctorate from UC Berkeley.

He is well recognized for his computer books, especially

• Computer Networks, ISBN 0130661023
• Operating Systems: Design and Implementation, ISBN 0136386776
• Modern Operating Systems, ISBN 0130313580

He wrote Minix, a free UNIX clone, which was the inspiration for the Linux operating system. He became involved in a famous Usenet discussion in 1992 with Linus Torvalds, Linux's creator, about the merits of Linus's basic approach using a monolithic kernel instead of the microkernel-based designs that Tanenbaum believed were the way of the future.

External Links

• Personal Website
• Dept. of Computer Systems at VU
• The Usenet discussion with Torvalds at Google Groups