My first experience with an original IBM PC, I wondered what this thing called Microsoft was.

It just didn't seem right. Why would you need that?

What if you just wanted a plain IBM computer? Why isn't that the mainstream without need for any third party software? Or is it software? How do people do without it? What if you just want to compute? Not use the PC as an office machine or do any gaming?

Is this Microsoft content really essential?

Isn't the hardware any good without a Microsoft?

How would you go about doing that?

I guess Linus eventually asked himself the same kind of things and drove it home :)