Maybe I'm reading the story you linked to incorrecty but wasn't that a quote from his friend, Lars Wirzenius?
The gist of what I was trying to say, poorly perhaps, is that in 1993 Linux was available, it was free and it worked on previously DOS-controlled, home PC's. BSD wasn't as available nor as ready for use on the home PC. At least not as I remember it. It certainly is now. But it wasn't then.
Torvalds himself said that he couldn't use 386BSD because it required the 80387, which he didn't have.
http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2010/02/18/freebsd-and-the-gpl/
Apparently this is wrong because I misquoted. Damn.