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Linux Mags that are Worth Subscribing to? 65

Posted by Cliff from the get-your-useful-info-where-you-can dept.
RyuMaou asks: "I'm a relative newbie to Linux and as such, I want to start reading up on it, in all its various flavors. I've got a couple of books, but they're almost out of date as soon as they're printed these days. So, I decided to try a Linux-centric magazine. Any recommendations on which Linux magazine is the best? And, why?"
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Linux Mags that are Worth Subscribing to? More

Linux Mags that are Worth Subscribing to?

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  • Linux Journal (Score:3, Informative)

    by Jeremiah Cornelius ( 137 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2001 @07:24PM (#2627612) Homepage Journal
    Bar none. It's not a "Johnny-come-lately", I read this when SLS and Yggdrasil were still distributions. They maintain an excellent editorial and contribution staff, many of whom you will find in other serious technical publications.

    Also, SysAdmin is excellent for an all-around continuing education. There is much more Linux specific content here in th epast couple of years, and the general Unix knowledge to be gleaned from its pages is incalculable.

  • I'm not a subscriber, but I've read Linux Journal a few times. It is very helpfull and well ballanced. I've heard great things about it from people who ARE subscribers. There are some other good ones, but I think LJ is near the top.
  • I have been getting Linux Journal [linuxjournal.com] for about 6 months ... been pretty happy with it .. not everything is great .. but pretty much every issue has something really good ... I have been collecting them to get to all those things .. and the stack is getting much to large ...
    • Try about 6 years of Journals... thank god they came out with the CD archive.

      LJ would be my first choice. Linux Magazine is pretty good as well, but I worry about it's health. It's been getting mighty slim these days. Of course, these are the only (US) print Linux rags that I know of anyway.
      • There used to be Maximum Linux, which wasn't that great. I subscribe both to LJ and LM. Honestly, I'd like to see them merge. I only like 40-60% of the content of either magazine for any one issue.

        And you're damned right about Linux Mag. I have an issue index from a homebrewing magazine that was thicker than the latest Linux Mag.
  • Ok - you who get paper Linux journals (including Linux Journal, har har) tell me what you get (besides a toliet-friendly reading format) that you don't or can't online? Since 1999 I've cancelled all my paper journals and only read things online. Am I missing anything? (Since I got my 802.11b-enhanced laptop, I've solved the "formatting" problem...)
    • Yes, you are! You are missing the oppurtunity to support the community, that supports you! There is no better way to make your voice heard than to do it with your dollars (or whatever your local currency is). Sure they get the page hits, but that doesn't help them nearly as much as a paying, dead-tree copy receiving subscriber, with their publisher or advertisers. If you can swing it (which you probably can if you canceled your subscription) pay the $20 a year and support the writers who make their livelyhood writing what you enjoy reading.
      • Yes, you are! You are missing the oppurtunity to support the community, that supports you!

        Please give me a reason to get the paper version rather than just sending them $20 each year... But I still need an answer to this question:

        What does any paper-based journal covering Linux offer that I'm missing online?

        • What does any paper-based journal covering Linux offer that I'm missing online?

          Well,
          1)my first thought is reading material for the john.
          2)Something to read while compiling.
          3)Something to give to a newbie who wants more info...
          4)Something to use in case you run out of something else while in the john (if the paper isnt too rough...)
          5)An old issue under the leg keeps this unstable desk from wobbling too much.
          6)Something I can leave on my desk at work for visitors to see and leaf through.
          7)If you find something useful, you can always go back to it later (provided that #4 didnt get to it first), but theres no telling how long the website or archives will be up.
          8)Some people like to curl up and read about stuff they like sometimes, and for me, paper is easier to stare at than little beams of radiation blasting at my dome.

          None of these may appeal to you, but apparently they do to some subscribers. But by the same token, there are a few newsletters/zines/sites that I read exclusively online, precisely because they don't appeal to me enough to subscribe to a dead tree version.
    • I wouldn't discount the importance of toilet reading material. That alone is almost worth it to me. (Married and have a kid, so the bathroom is the closest thing to private time I have.) Then there is bedtime reading material (even though I'm married, there's still at least five down days per month, so no comments from the peanut gallery;)

      And, one of the biggies: sometimes I can't get online (phone in use or number busy, or cable modem doesn't work, or hosed an installation/upgrade, etc.) and I need some material. It's in the dead tree format. Also, the level of writing is usually far superior than that that I find online.

      Let me again mention portability of the format. I'm in the doctor's office with my wife. I don't own a laptop, and can't get wireless access even if I did. So the magazine keeps me busy.
      • Well and fine. I'm trying to get a reason __beyond__ format considerations for subscribing. Content differences? Perks? I have plenty o' reading material for the throne room library -- any more and hemrhoids are a real possibility. Also, as far as supporting the community -- wouldn't sending $20 do better?

        Folks...I'm asking for something inherent with the print media that I'm missing online -- besides portability and community support. There's got to be something, right?

        Actually, one respondant gave me one reason: archivability. It's true I could archive the web pages or rely on Google cache...but there's something to be said for looking thru old copies of early Byte or PC Magazine (when there was actual competition in the DOS world)...However, is that the only reason? If so, why could I not get a CD-Rom subscription for a more permanent (?), less-volumnious archive?

        • I understand your question a little better now (just needed to be pounded in with a sledgehammer). And I'd have to say no. Absolutely not. As for CD-Rom, I don't know why they don't press them each month. Look at AOL, bulk CD's can't cost too much:) But seriously, LJ just announced a CD-ROM with every issue ever. While I'm sure much of the early stuff might be worthless, I'll probably buy it, and toss most of my dead tree versions.
        • Yes, I guess I needed clarification of the question as well...If you do rule out format benefits and and are discussing this in relationship to content only - I think a CDrom subscription would probably be better *BUT* only if it is layed out exactly the same as the dead tree mag, adverts and all. (and of course in a printer friendly and non proprietary format - plain html would be best - and no pdf's please!)

          But if you add back in the benefits of the format (especially in addition to having the material (some or all) available online)...I will definately subscribe to a dead tree version for a mag i enjoy, I would be even more likely if the subscription included the mag on CD as well(or had an option for a little more money to add the CD to the subscription)...
          • Yes teacher, I will write:
            "I will close all tags and I will not submit before hitting preview"
            100 times
        • Yes, there is something; ads. Wait! Ads online are incredibly intrusive and annoying. In mag format, they just flip on by without taking up screen space.

          True, many of the ads are irrelevant, but some are informative. You may actually find out about a company/product of interest to you. Even if you aren't shopping, perusing the ads does may give you some new perspective on where Linux is going (or where co's want to take it for you).

          A small benefit? Yes. Useful to *some* people? Definitely. Useful to you? I dunno...

          Just my $.02 worth.
          • This is not a small thing -- ads are valuable. This weekend I bought The Linux Journal and Linux Magazine from Fry's ($12 together). I read every page. Online I scan articles and usually only when I'm searching for something specific.

            Here's a benefit of the paper version: folding. I was able to leave the magazines open, folded to the page I left off for later reading. Can't do that online (no, bookmarking doesn't come close).

            Looks like I'm going to subscribe...

  • Not because it's a bad magazine, but because the articles are very technical, and seem to be more oriented towards admins rather than home users. The original poster says he's a newbie to linux.

    I was a subscriber to Maximum Linux, which I thought was a great newbie magazine. It came with cdroms full of useful software so you wouldn't have to scour the net for stuff, and the articles were aimed at desktop users. It went belly up though, and my subscription was replaced with wired.

    Why not just go to your local Barnes and Nobles and see what's on the rack?
    • Maximum Linux is the most useless piece of filth I have ever read. It's thin and it's also about $8, most of which you are paying for ads. Everything is just "kick ass" or it sucks. Sorry, as little as that's worth to an advanced user, it's worth even less to someone legitimately trying to get a clue. Maximum Linux is meant to be trendy, and it works, all the little so called wannabes buy it. Read Linux Journal, it's the most well rounded of all the Linux magazines. You read an article about something that interests you and if you don't understand it you research it to figure out what it's talking about. Much better to have too much information than to have no information. To recap, I'm sorry to say but Imagine Publishing (they publish all the Maximum magazines) went down the tubes when boot became Maximum PC. Prior to that, boot and net were two good magazines worth reading.
    • The fact that it's really technical is exactly why you should get the magazine--it'll take longer to outgrow it. In the meantime, you'll be absorbing the technical stuff and at some point p between when you start reading LJ and when you're technically competent enough to skim it and understand what's going on, you'll be learning all kinds of exciting stuff accurately--which is why you wanted to look at magazines in the first place.
    • It's probably too late now, but you could have called Imagine and asked for a refund on your subscription.

      (I was going to change it to Maximum PC, but haven't read every issue since they changed their editorial content a year or so ago.)
  • I've been subscribing to Linux Journal for a number of years now. I enjoy most issues, but have been wondering who exactly the target audience is. One article extremely expert article (ie. explaining how to write video4linux drivers) will be juxtaposed with a newbie article (ie. a list of useful shell commands like "du" and "df".)

    My hypothesis is that the number of people who would want to subscribe to Linux based magazines isn't large enough to be able to faction even further into gearing it towards either newbies or experts.

    The nice thing about this format though, is that once you find yourself getting more expert with the system, you can go back and learn how to write those v4l drivers. ;)
  • Wow, an article mentioning Linux that doesn't have any posts involving Microsoft! Anyway, I thought I'd add that Linux Magazine has accepted Microsoft as an advertiser. Title of Microsoft's ad reads:
    "compare and understand the technology" (page 18, Nov. 2001, Linux Magazine). I'm really at a loss for how to feel about this.
    a.) Microsoft is funding linux in a way
    b.) Seems strange to advertise "understand the technology" to a group of people who understand that that's very difficult without source code.
    c.) This has nothing to do with Linux!

    My most prominent feeling is (c). So i guess it comes down to, is targetted advertising the responsibility of the advertiser or the publisher? I read Linux magazine to learn about Linux, and Linux related/enabling products (good rackmounts, software, linux based ISPs). But then again, I'm sure you'll find Microsoft ads in many magazines about cars, fashion, etc., so why should Linux be different?

    Linux Magazine is a fine publication, but I prefer LJ a bit more, and depending on the issue, I can really enjoy a $14 Linux Format now and then.
    • Ok heres the deal...

      You bought that issue for Linux Schtuff. Right? The publishers know this. MS wants to advertise to you. Advertisements cost money. Publisher takes money (almost thinking this must be some sort of trojan horse). Can you think of any more hillariously ironic way for MS to advertise than in a niche magazine purchased mostly by software zealots? Props to MS for having the balls to think their ads will sway people who just PAID for a mag about FREE software! Its not to often that the community makes money DIRECTLY from the pockets of MS!
      heh.
    • I did the same thing with the M$ ad as with almost all others: I ignored it. I'm not sure why so many people were pissing and moaning about it. I ignore the product reviews (I can't afford most of the stuff they review) so I can't tell you whether or not they are biased towards advertisers. But as I have not yet seen a review of FrontPage or something like that, it doesn't seem that the M$ ad has changed anything (and the last Samba article I remember was from before the M$ ad, so that doesn't even count.)
    • The comp.os.linux.advocacy discussion on the subject is here [google.com]

  • Okay, I'll probably not make friends here, but I actually like Open Magazine. First, it's free... but at the "price" of lots of advertisements and very little "meat". Sure, I read Linux Journal, too. But Open Magazine has lots of eye candy--racks, SANs, even clusters. That's actually how I found out about a couple of hardware vendors that specialize in Linux products... and I've been extremely happy. All of the articles are also written so that you can read them easily enough and your boss might actually understand it, too. Just don't expect to become a CIO of a Fortune 500 company by just reading Open Magazine, though ;)

    • i get open mag, or did, but i found it very disappointing. The ads are nice (free magazines usually have nice ads, there were some local magazines i picked up solely to look at the ads, but i digress). The content is really bad though, the topics are interesting, but the articles don't have anything to them.

      I guess its aimed at the tourist techie.

      Linux Journal on the other hand, is much more of a technical magazine, and there are many interesting things in there that I can't read past the first paragraph because its allready over my head, but if the first paragraph is really interesting, i'll take a look online and figure out the basics, and then read the rest of the article.

      lj also has nice ads :)
    • Yeah I liked Open Mag, until they stopped sending it to people outside of North America. They didn't send any notification (not even a damn email!) that they were to do this so I wasn't very impressed.
  • In my opinion, there are no really good Linux magazines. The reason is that there are few Linux users as it is, but there are definitely not enough Linux users of a certain type. For instance, there are too few home users to justify a magazine catered toward just them. There aren't enough Linux programmers to make a magazine just for them either. Nor are there enough Linux administrators for their own magazine either.

    So all the Linux magazines try to appeal to everyone. In doing so, they guarantee that every issue you get will have lots of articles that you don't care about.

    • By running your own linux box, you have to be your own admin and user, while being your own programmer is highly arguable (although it would be to your benefit to learn at least the basics of some unix shell languages). So, while you might not be directly interested in some of the articles when you first read the magazine; just set it aside and it might be something that you'll be interested in later.
  • I got lots of books when I started playing with Linux, and you know what? They were all pretty much useless. The only way to lean Linux is to use it. Expect to mess up a lot of the time and delete your files on a regular basis, but the best way to learn is to make mistakes. If nothing else, you will get really good at the install process.

    • Not totally useless - I used my copy of "Linux Unleashed" or "Slackware Linux Unleashed" or whatever it was called for a monitor stand for ages.
      (It was initially bought for quick access to a CDROM in the days before distros came on magazine covers, but I digress.)
  • I know this is offtopic, but does anybody know about the background of Doc Searls? What code has he written? What documents has he forged? What projects has he led? What battles has he fought? Has he been with Linux from the beginning? How did he get involved with the magazine? Is his heart truly Klingon?
    • I have no idea about his qualifications to be a writer, but I do know Doc personally from local Users Group meetings. Certainly he is knowledgable about the subject, mostly becuase of a strong Unix background. I don't think he has contributed anything substantial to Linux, but has has been using and teaching it for better than 3 years. Like Joe Barr (another Austinite who appears in a number of online publications) he is just a strong user and advocate, and not a developer. (But Doc has a much more plesent personality)
      • Doc's from Austin? I live in Austin, but have never been to the meetings. Anyway, thanks for the info. I like what he writes, but everytime I read a column I was always wondering what he did besides write columns.
  • and it even accepts input from amateurs. So if you think you've got something useful to say, you send the editors it.

    It does appear to be a web-only mag though, so if you're not comfortable with that (shrugs ;)

    Apart from that, Linux Journal is good, and I've been known to read Linux Magazine, and to look at other ones.
  • I generally take a trip to Borders once a month and return with both of these.

    Sysadmin isn't specifically a Linux magazine, but it frequently has some damn good articles involving Linux and will show the novice the kind of things Linux and other Unices are really good at.

    Linux Journal is the other magazine I read regularly, it has a good mixed bag of articles and opinions.

    Someone else mentioned Linux Gazette [linuxgazette.com], it's web-based only and is a 'sister' of Linux Journal. It has some very good technical articles and it's free (sponsored by various companies).

    You won't learn everything from magazines though, see them as a catalyst for further research through books, web sites, man pages, and most of all, your own experimentation.
  • I read both Linux Journal and Linux Magazine. Linux Journal is a pretty good overall magazine, but as far as actual useful information, Linux Magazine is tops. They have Randall Schwartz doing a monthly Perl column that is worth it alone for me. If you're in the UK or have a good bookstore, Linux Format seems to be a great magazine with a monthly CD, although it's $13.95 over here which is a bit pricey.

  • Playtux (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bazman ( 4849 ) on Thursday November 29, 2001 @11:37AM (#2630888) Journal
    Lots of pictures of naked penguins, but I only read it for the articles. Honest.

    Baz
  • there are at least two populist linux magazines published here in the uk.

    Linux Format has just started a version with a DVD coverdisk, great for those of us who don't want to download XFree86 over a modem...

    http://www.linuxformat.com/

    Linux Magazine was originally German and all the articles read like they'd just passed them through Babel. it has come on leaps and bounds since the english office opened up though. wish they'd supply usage instructions for the cover mounted cd though, they don't even mention the contents in the mag.

    http://www.livepublishing.co.uk/linux/

    both are a good mix of articles and reviews with Linux Format being more newbie friendly, some of the LM articles are just plain weird.

    andy
    • Geez, what the hell XFree86 are you getting? Last I did it, I could easily fit it on a ~650 MB CD. Must be that strange character set you Brits use;) Or else the extra space to add the 'u' to words like 'color'. (And let's not mention the British travesty that is the word 'aluminium').

      (All in jest. I'm hoping to make a London Brown Ale this weekend. Couldn't find a kit that wasn't an overly hopped 'Merican Brown Ale, so I had to roll my own.)
    • Hmm. Your Linux Magazine must be totally different than the US version. US version doesn't come with a coverdisk and (as far as I know) has always been in English.

      That said, I read Linux Journal, Linux Magazine (US Version) and only get Linux Format when the coverdisk contains something large that I want or several somethings that add up to large. All three have their merits, but the coverdisk idea is one I'd like to see the US mags pick up (I remember Maximum Linux had a coverdisk, but it's now kaput!).
  • The Computer Source Magazine [sourcemagazine.com] has had many well written "getting started with Linux" articles over the last few of years. It is a free print publication for the Puget Sound area, but it has all of it's articles archived online. Go to the archive [sourcemagazine.com] and search for linux on the page.

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