Matt Welsh

Computer Science professor and long-time Linux hacker

Areas of Expertise:

  • Operating systems
  • distributed systems
  • networks
  • Linux
  • sensor networks
  • speaking
Matt Welsh is an associate professor of Computer Science at Harvard University. His research interests span many aspects of complex systems, including operating systems design, distributed systems, networking, and parallel computing. Matt is a long-time Linux advocate and developer, a role in which he has fielded questions from thousands of Linux users over the years. He was the original coordinator of the Linux Documentation Project and author of the original Linux Installation and Getting Started guide. He completed his Ph.D. at UC Berkeley and his B.S. at Cornell University.

For more details, you can visit his personal web page and blog.

Running Linux Running Linux
by Matthias Kalle Dalheimer , Matt Welsh
Fifth Edition December 2005
Print: $49.99
Ebook: $39.99

Running Linux Running Linux
by Matt Welsh , Matthias Kalle Dalheimer , Terry Dawson , Lar Kaufman
Fourth Edition December 2002
OUT OF PRINT

Running Linux Running Linux
by Matt Welsh , Matthias Kalle Dalheimer , Lar Kaufman
Third Edition August 1999
OUT OF PRINT

Running Linux Running Linux
by Matt Welsh , Lar Kaufman
Second Edition August 1996
OUT OF PRINT

Running Linux Running Linux
by Matt Welsh , Lar Kaufman
February 1995
OUT OF PRINT

Matt blogs at:

What I wish systems researchers would work on

May 16 2013

I just got back from HotOS 2013 and, frankly, it was a little depressing. Mind you, the conference was really well-organized; there were lots of great people; an amazing venue; and fine work by the program committee and chair... but I could not help being left with the feeling that… read more

The other side of "academic freedom"

April 21 2013

My various blog posts about moving from academia to industry have prompted a number of conversations with PhD students who are considering academic careers. The most oft-cited reason for wanting a faculty job is "academic freedom," which is typically described as "being able to work on anything you want." This… read more

Running a software team at Google

April 09 2013

I'm often asked what my job is like at Google since I left academia. I guess going from tenured professor to software engineer sounds like a big step down. Job titles aside, I'm much happier and more productive in my new role than I was in the 8 years at… read more

Looking back on 1 million pageviews

March 28 2013

This blog just hit one million pageviews:Seems like a pretty cool milestone to me. I never imagined I'd get so much traffic.Just for fun, here are the top five most popular posts on this blog so far:Why I'm Leaving Harvard (99263 pageviews), in which I announce my departure from Harvard to… read more

Moving my life to the cloud

March 20 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/clspeace/2250488434/I'm in the process of moving my (computing) life entirely to the cloud -- no more laptop: just a phone, tablet (which I use rarely) and a Chromebook Pixel. My three-year-old MacBook Pro is about to croak, and it seems like now is the time to migrate everything to the… read more
Matt Welsh