I was wondering, the timing was a sore point for bsd users back in the day. But linux had the upper hand because it was built on pc, spoke the language, so to speak. The groundswell was immense because all the hobbyists already understood the boot stack and the machine code. I don’t disagree but it is “coulda woulda shoulda”.

If they had ported to 386 a few years earlier, linus probably would be a bsd enthusiast. It is also possible the window that drove him there could have persisted well past bsd on 386. Who knows.