Linus just wants to play Quake

Linus Torvalds, the man so often on center stage at tech gatherings, only had a cameo role during Transmeta's unveiling of its top-secret Crusoe chip family Tuesday. Torvalds -- creator of the Linux kernel and, coincidentally, a Transmeta employee -- walked on stage briefly after the company unveiled its new chips, but only to demonstrate his Quake playing skills and how well the game runs on Linux and Transmeta chips. Torvalds came out shooting but was no KillCreek -- having trouble staying alive for more than a few seconds. It was ironic that, Quake cameo aside, Torvalds was never the focus of the Crusoe demonstration, since the fledgling company owes much of the attention its launch received to his tech-cult status. Full story to follow. -- Lisa M. Bowman, ZDNet News