At which university was Linus Torvalds a student when he began developing Linux?

Linus Torvalds was a student at the University of Helsinki when he began developing Linux.

Torvalds studied computer science at the university and encountered Unix in 1990 through a course using a DEC MicroVAX computer running Ultrix. He also read Andrew Tanenbaum’s operating-systems textbook, which included the educational MINIX system. These experiences strongly influenced the project that became the Linux kernel.

In January 1991, Torvalds bought an Intel 80386-based PC and began writing an operating-system kernel for it. Development initially took place on MINIX, using the GNU C Compiler. He announced the project publicly on the comp.os.minix newsgroup on 25 August 1991.

The university connection is sometimes confused with Aalto University, formerly Helsinki University of Technology. Torvalds later visited that institution to hear Richard Stallman speak, but it was not where he was enrolled when Linux development began. The first Linux prototypes were also distributed from an FTP server at his university.