Setting Direction for 2009
As we expand linuxdlsazine in the new year, we'd like to get your opinion on the topics that matter to you.
Monday, January 5th, 2009
Happy New Year, everyone. Now that we’ve finished with the look back at 2008, it’s time to look ahead. As we open 2009, we’re interested in getting your thoughts on how we can make linuxdlsazine into the best possible resource for you.
We’ll be expanding our editorial coverage in the coming year and here’s your opportunity to help us set direction. Please share your general interests with us by completing the quick survey below.
Now, let’s get specific. Use the comments to tell us exactly what kind of content you would like to see or the direction you would like us to take.
Do you have an idea for an article? Is there someone you would like to see us interview? Share it below. Is there something that you don’t particularly like? Share it as well. And if you see a comment below that you agree with, be sure to vote it up with the thumbs up icon.Thanks for your input!
Comments on "Setting Direction for 2009"
I’d like to see some clustering content that doesn’t focus on HPC.
I’d like to see more of a focus on users, rather than Sys Admins and developers. People are actually buying computers with Linux on them, and knowing what to do with it is a good thing.
I agree with ahuka. Even though this magazine has been recently geared more towards much more advanced users, it has tried to keep the casual users around.
It would be really great for LinuxMag to produce content that cannot be found with a simple web search, but that is still necessary for a functioning system. Some examples I suggest are:
-An analysis of gconftool and its cousins
-More on partitioning a mundane system
-Interpreting dmesg and the /etc folder (the online information is enormous, and an actual human being would be a very helpful guide).
That being said, LinuxMag cannot be everything to everyone, and I appreciate what it is now.
Tutorials, How-to’s and software reviews are most helpful for me as an admin.
Thanks linuxdlsazine!
I would like to see more content for sysadmins. For example, LDAP (whether via ActiveDirectory or RedHat Directory Server or some other solution), monitoring and reporting, management, storage (iSCSI, DRBD) and Oracle. Also useful would be a comparison of the many virtualization solutions out there.
Tutorials are also great (especially considering the training cutbacks). It’s inordinately difficult to replicate the classroom experience, but I would enjoy seeing lessons and corresponding VMWare/VirtualBox/Xen image(s) where a student could actually practice.
What I would not like to see is just a rehash of the thousands of existing pages on basic administration and utilities (sed/awk/perl/ksh, etc..). A links column is fine, but it seems a wasted effort to duplicate the great content that everyone else has.
Ultimately though, (And linuxdlsazine has been good about this) is the quality of the articles. There are many tutorial sites out there. Alas, the content is rarely checked for even minimum functionality. One site had an fdisk command that would render the disk unbootable. Another repeated some decades old advice about page space sizing without understanding the workload. It’s not feasible to double-check everything, but my guess is that there are many new Linux users out there who are needlessly frustrated because the tutorials/articles don’t work as indicated.
I also agree with ahuka.
Desktop users need the help and the community needs growth in this area.
I love introducing new users to Linux but often feel discouraged when newbies get frustrated and I don’t have a simple answer. I would read articles a meant for newbies too because there is many things I still get frustrated with and I could share more of what I learn and point them to LM as a resource.
Software that keeps an old copy of XP around should be a major push for Linux on the desktop.
I would love to dump XP totally but I still don’t find programs close enough to iTunes, Quickbooks, AutoCAD to totally drop XP.
If I was better educated on using the “near equivalents” in Linux then maybe I could make the final leg of the move to Total Linux.
(I am currently a Kubuntu user and Linux user since 2001)
I agree with “mrgdonovan” and “ahuka” but perhaps with a more n00bish target audience. Perhaps a single tutorial section devoted to tutoring new, intermediate and advanced users, with clearly delineated chapters for each of type of user.
Failing that, a section reviewing tutorials, which would provide a link or other means to obtain the tutorial.
I agree with orc65. I would like to see more standard level user oriented problem solving articles / How To’s. For example as far as I can tell the latest 2.6.27 kernel being shipped with new distros (e.g. Fedora, Mandriva, openSuSE, Ubuntu) has broken support for many of the MadWifi based cards. How do I as a user get my D-Link PCMCIA WiFi card working again; or Supend to Disk always seems to be a hit and miss affair, what are the ways I can try to get this working. What I mean is down to the modprobe commands, what to look for in Kernel logs, using USB view,
I’ll add my voice to those who are looking for more newbie related material while keeping in mind that Ubuntu Linux as much as GNOME Linux (or KDE for that matter).
Some have mentioned common issues for end users and the lack of documentation or discussion of them. I’ll add setting up Samba for simple directory browsing of other computers in the home or small office.
Do keep some programming/scripting in the magazine but far less C/C++ as most end users are likely going to be using such technologies as Python, PHP, Perl and so on. C and C++ is for high end stuff.
I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.!
ttfn
John
Goodness, that didn’t work. The first line should read in part “Ubuntu does not equal Linux as much as GNOME does not equal Linux”
Sorry!
ttfn
John
Hi,
More about 3D programming maybe. Maths, concepts, software ….
Keep it high end, really god content here.
MPI, OpenCL all that to grow stuff.
Regards,
Constant
I would like to see running sections/projects for Linux hobbyists. The hobbyist lays somewhere on the continuum between the end-user and the expert. One project that I would really like a detailed write-up on is setting up a SOHO e-mail/web/DSN server with separate front-end (within DMZ) and back-end. This is very complicated for those who don’t have a strong IT background. Usually books written on this subject are aimed at IT pros.
Dear All,
I think there are two type of users of Linux: the “old fashioned” linux fans who need expert topics, and the new, casual users who just bought a PC (for example an eee) with linux installed on it.
For the casual user, a “Linux Tips and Tricks” section used to be very useful.
It is much harder to cater for the expert user, becouse there are so many different areas. What I would recommend is to select a core subject for each issue and discuss it in detial in the magazine. Potential issues could be Database Management, package management systems, printing/sound/video/network architecture of Linux, security etc.
What I found really useful is the software reviews. Actually tehre are so many different projects going on that selecting the proper tool for a purpose is a complicated task. So, please carry on providing that feature!
Thank you for the opportunity for adding my opinion!
Sandor
I would like to see an up-to-date article on TV & FM tuner cards and Video4Linux. Some general content about multi-media data streaming on linux based computers (intel and ARM) would be fabulous also.
Basically I would like to see a focus on the architecture side of GNU/Linux distributions and the Linux kernel and the connections to the most popular and upcoming uses of computers these days: web browsing, media streaming, video games, GPU computing, power saving mechanisms, etc.
Thanks!
A good mix of articles makes LM an excellent mag. I don’t understand a lot of the stuff about system admin and blade servers and all the little intricacies of Linux, but the more I read the more I understand. As a noob I like to see more tutorials that showcase the power and flexibility of Linux console.