thelinuxlink.net

Alas, TUX Magazine is no more.

http://www.tuxmagazine.com/node/1000254

I was afraid that might be the case. The type of people who get magazine subscriptions are usually enthusiasts and quickly become knowledgeable in their field. Beginners would only benefit from the magazine for a short time, and there is so much information on the Internet, which is the first place most of us turn. It's a shame, though, since they really did a good job with the articles and I liked the polished artwork and design of the magazine.

That's a real shame. Tux was a great online magazine. Great articles. Hopefully the resources go back into Linux Journal.

It's a bummer, but it's not like you could not see this coming I guess. When they switched to a fee subscription I figured the writing was on the wall. It's hard to justify paying for an online periodical when a lot of the information could be had for free on other sites.

I have to blame the linux community for this fail cases. I think most of the linux geeks that want to get people into linux want to do it the geeky way (by RTFM, man etc).

I believe that if more people were open to non-geeky ways to learn linux this cases wouldnt turn out sour.

At the same time, I have seen other magazines actually growing on this field specially Linux Magazine (there are 2 linux magazines I am talking about the european one) which is like a Linux Format but more for newbies and I think is a great magazine, a bit expensive but less than Linux Format.

I don't know how you can blame the linux community for this. Tux was trying to create a magazine that didn't really have much hope for finding a paying audience. Beginners who just want to use their computer as a tool won't bother reading an alert or pop-up message, much less a magazine. Enthusiasts probably know most of what's in the magazine, or at least how to find the information for free on the Internet. It was well written, polished, and unfortunately had very little chance of finding a paying audience.

Unfortunately times have changed. The magazines are not stuck to being the crap that PC Magazine is or the Mac one that is just as horrid, or on the other pole, the Dr Dobbs or Linux Journals. Neither really are a good fit for the noob. The latter is too geeky, and the first is just .... well, useless.

The age of Compute! and Byte are long gone. And its too bad.

If thta was the case why are Linux Format and Linux Magazine doing so great.

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Jza wrote:If thta was the case why are Linux Format and Linux Magazine doing so great.

Well TUX was an online mag if I'm not mistaken. With Linux Journal|Magazine|Format or other paper publication I can toss that in my bag and pull it out to read at lunch, waiting on someone, or on a hiking break.

With an online only medium, there's not much there that I can't find elsewhere for free online. The only deciding factor would be the writers and I have yet to find a magazine writer that I will pay extra for the ability to read their work.

Last time I read it, Linux Format is targeted towards experienced linux people, or at least geeks who aren't afraid of the command line, and as Linux Magazine's byline states, they are:

The Magazine for Advanced Linux Know-how

They are targeting enthusiasts and knowledgeable people or people looking to become knowledgeble, not newbies who don't really want to know how things work. Enthusiasts are willing to pay, and will subscribe to and buy magazines, while newbies won't.

I have to admit that I more or less just skimmed it. Most of the content was far below my radar, and I think this is probably the case with most people here. I love LJ, though, even in it's new format (though I have to admit I still prefer the old format). I'll continue to subscribe to that as long as they keep putting out a high quality mag. I got a Linux Format (I'm pretty sure that's what it is) for xmass - I really like it. I could sure as hell never afford it, though - $16 buys a hardback book or dinner for two, and TBH I don't really need a DVD of stuff I can grab easily enough for myself. Maybe when I'm rich and famous...

TUX magazine was great but trying to get linux newbies to read it is hard. For one you probably will not hear about TUX Magazine untill you really get into it and learn a lot of it, also that would be like handing me a automotive magazine and expecting me to read it, newbie just want to use it and not have to do any other work like reading tutorials and news and such. So the target they were aiming for was newbies who become real passionate about linux, want to learn more, and have heard of their magazine. Needless to say that is a small market.

Well, I guess this is were the community can come in. There are other online magizines for Linux. Linux Gazette comes to mind as a great one.

http://linuxgazette.net/

I will say that it is not for the newbie. Perhaps our great community could come up with a newbie friendly one. Some blogs are actually great online magizines of sorts too. I would put "All About Linux" into this catagory.

I have to admit that I need to get more involoved into the community in some way that helps out. I don't know what that is because Linux and computers is more of a hobby for me, so learning is slower paced than if it was my passion. I appreciate Linc's blog too because he often puts in short "How To's" that give you cool tools and hints to get things going on your own Linux system.

Perhaps, this is the TLLTS community project goal that needs to be done. All of us could submit monthly articles in 5-6 catagories, then have one or two community members do the editing and final publishing.

I still believe this would be a problematic venture. The point I'm trying to make is that you're either interested in learning linux, and have probably taught yourself a great deal from articles on the Internet that already exist, or you're the type of person that doesn't care and won't read anything to learn about your computer at all. There really aren't that many people in between. If this sort of stuff isn't a class taught in school, most people aren't going to learn it.

Tux had great writing, professional looks, was free at first and pretty cheap after it started charging, and there was very little audience for it. A publication for people who don't want to read about its subject won't work no matter how well done it is. The first book I bought concerning Linux was Linux in a Nutshell from O'Reilly. Most of the people here are probably the same way. Simply contributing to sites like linuxquestions.org or to the documentation projects out there is probably the best way to help out people who want to learn these types of things.

Jza wrote:If thta was the case why are Linux Format and Linux Magazine doing so great.

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I buy them, but I would hardly call their circulation great.