[KLUG Members] Favorite Linux Magazine and other tech magazines

[Eric Beversluis]

On Mon, 2006-03-27 at 08:20 -0500, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
> > I'm looking to get a magazine subscriptino for linux and and other open source technologies. I have occassionaly read Linux
> > Magazine, Linux Format and Linux Journal, although I haven't been partial to one or the other. Anyone here have a particular
> > favorite, and any reasons why so i can make sure I get the best bang for our buck? Thanks,
> 
> I wouldn't waste my money on any of them.  I subscribe to both the Linux
> Journal and Linux Magazine and did subscribe to that other one that went
> belly up (name? Something 'Maximium'?).  They've degraded significantly
> in the past couple of years and are getting worse pretty rapidly now.
> Both LJ and LM have run basically duplicate articles back-to-back
> several times now - I'm talking about the EXACT same material being
> covered by the magazines in subsequent months.  So why subscribe to
> both?  While the content of LJ has always had a bent toward the esoteric
> it seems to just be getting worse. [i.e. clusters, embedded systems,
> building a silent computer;  to what %%% of the readership are these
> topics relevant?  If it is >0.5% then I'll eat my hat.  They are
> neat/interesting in a technical sense and maybe some geeks really get
> revved by reading this stuff, but the information is really not USEFUL]
> And now that is 'complimented' by Peterly The Petulant as the editor of
> LJ whose texts read like a rant/diatribe that would be of dubious value
> of a LUG mailling list but has no business being in a professional
> publication (relating things to a "disease", calling things crap,
> etc...)   And then, [can there be more?] you have the self-appointed
> Pope-Of-All-Things-IT Doc Searls.... ugh... please, go write some code
> already, it might bring you back down to earth (no offense intended to
> the actual Catholic Pope who seems like a much more humble guy than
> Peterly or Doc).
> 
> Beyond that there is a NON-STOP stream of BLOG, WIKI, MP3, BLOG, WIKI,
> MP3, BLOG, WIKI, MP3.... articles.  [Dude, if you haven't figures out
> how to play music with your LINUX desktop yet....].   These *DO* seem
> like articles that might be useful to 'Joe Six Pack' but not in these
> quantities.  Linux/Open Source is a *VAST* arena of material,  they
> really should be able to do a better job of selecting.  The magazines
> respective Websites *DO* have better content - why isn't the Open Office
> Unleashed series in the magazine for example?  Undoubtably useful to
> just about everyone. and clearly beneficial to Open Source adoption.
> 
> It pains me to say this but I've gotten more USEFUL content from recent
> issues of Microsoft's TechVenue magazine that I have from either LJ or
> LM neither of which I will be renewing my subscription for.
> 
> And then there are three recent article series which really painted by
> wagon read:
> 1.) The SSO series featuring MIT Kerberos and an *ancient* version of
> OpenLDAP.  I pity the sod who actually goes through the trouble of what
> that three or four part series prescribed.  Come any upgrade time and
> his life is going to be a schema fixing dependency resolving *HELL*.
> 2.) The rather nice groupware article which mentions the content in the
> next issue.... which wasn't there.
> 3.) The 'Introduction To SuSe's Security Features' article which I
> opened to with expectation of information of... you know... SuSe's
> security features.  Only to have about two and a half pages of how to
> install SuSe, and a couple of paragraphs about what you can do with
> iptables????  Does any even proof these things to see if the content has
> ANYTHING to do with the title?
> 
> You can get better stuff, for free, on the web.  You can buy a rather
> nice printer and some three ring binders for the cost of subscribing to
> these rags for a few years.  When you find something useful just print
> it yourself.

I've found some meatier articles in the British _Linux User &
Developer_. Also book reviews. Also worth while for people to experience
a Brit approach to things. 

EB
> 
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