Actually... It's a two fold story...

The first half of the lore is that Linus was bitten by a penguin.  Ever
since that time he kind of "liked" penguins.  This was a kind of an early
Linux Kernel list explanation for choosing Tux.

Today Torvalds is claiming it as myth, but its a great story none the
less.  I believe Larry Ewing (the creator of Tux) went largely on some
suggestions of Alan Cox.

Supporting Stories:
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,42209,00.html
http://www.isc.tamu.edu/~lewing/linux/

Torvalds "biting" transcript with MSNBC:
<Chris_MSNBC> CyberYoda: How did the Penguin become the Linux mascot?
<Linus_Torvalds-> Partly accident, partly because I like penguins. Partly
because I was bitten by a penguin.
<Linus_Torvalds-> It was at an open zoo. I made my finger look like a
herring - and the penguin fell for it. It was a very very timid bite.
<grin>
Source: http://farcaster.net/linus.html

I spent a good deal of time with Larry at a Comdex a number of years back
and we talked about Tux.  At that time The Linux Store was still around
and he was teasing Mark, the owner, they he still owed him a 48" Stuffed
Tux.  Because early on the usage rules for Tux, were that you could use it
as long as you gave one of whatever you used it on to Larry if he asked
for it. :) I think he had realized this wasn't a good way of doing things
about that time and had already stopped, but it was funny to see him give
Mark a hard time about it.  Now I think he just requires attribution to
himself and the gimp.

-Derek


Alan Dayley said:
> This is the best explaination that I can find.  The bottom line is that
> it is what Linus wanted.
>
> http://www.linux.org/info/penguin.html
>
> Alan
>
> -------Original Message-------
> From: Vaughn Treude <vltreude@deru.com>
> Sent: 07/17/03 07:59 AM
> To: plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> Subject: Why the penguin?
>
>>
>> This is a question that has been bugging me for some time - why is the
> Linux
> mascot a penguin?  I've googled it, only to find repetetive quotes from
> Linus
> Torvalds saying how he wanted the penguin logo to look (cute, cuddly,
> satisfied as if it just filled up on herring) but not WHY the penguin.
> Perhaps he's a Monty Python fan like me ("There's a penguin on the
> telly!")
> Don't get me wrong, I think Tux is cool.  I was just wondering why he's
> a  penguin and not a badger or an ocelot.
>
> Vaughn Treude
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