There's plenty of attractive smart phones -- the iPhone, Blackberries, Droid, and the G1 Phone -- but none of them satisfied Linus Torvalds, the famous computer programmer who initiated the kernel development of the Linux operating system and remains its chief kernel architect.  He describes, "I generally hate phones - they are irritating and disturb you as you work or read or whatever - and a cellphone to me is just an opportunity to be irritated wherever you are."

However, Mr. Torvalds has finally found a phone he can truly embrace -- Google's Nexus One.  Mr. Torvalds, who formally owned a G1 phone and a China-only Motorola Linux phone, writes in his blog:

But I have to admit, the Nexus One is a winner. I wasn't enthusiastic about buying a phone on the internet sight unseen, but the day it was reported that it finally had the pinch-to-zoom thing enabled, I decided to take the plunge. I've wanted to have a GPS unit for my car anyway, and I thought that google navigation might finally make a phone useful.

And it does. What a difference! I no longer feel like I'm dragging a phone with me "just in case" I would need to get in touch with somebody - now I'm having a useful (and admittedly pretty good-looking) gadget instead. The fact that you can use it as a phone too is kind of secondary. 

Many do not know it, but Google's mobile phone operating system Android uses a modified Linux kernel.  While not everyone will appreciate Mr. Torvalds' sentiment, it's high praise for the father of Linux to personally endorse the new phone.

Google has yet to release sales figures for its new smartphone, which it is offering online only.  In January it is estimated that Google only sold 80,000 Nexus One units -- a rather disappointing launch when compared to the 600,000 units Apple's iPhone moved in its original launch month back in 2007 (most of those sales occurred within three days).  The sales estimates come courtesy of Flurry Inc., an analytics group.