Money well spent | Linux Format

Hudzilla - 11:56am on Thursday August 27th 2009

Six weeks ago I asked for ideas for things you'd like to see in LXF, and you guys submitted a huge number of suggestions - thanks!

I've spent the last few weeks tracking down writers for all your ideas, and the end result is that around 40 of your suggestions have been matched to writers, given deadlines for future issues of LXF, and are hopefully already under production. At just 116 pages we're far from a big magazine, but I'll try to squeeze in as many of your requests as possible - be patient!

And now let's take things a step further. As you may already know, we create a special edition magazine about Linux every two to three months. We've just finished one that pulls together the best of our HotPicks over recent years, and the next one will return to coding. But after that we're open to suggestions: what topics would you like us to devote a whole magazine to?

Answer in the comments below. And, no, a whole magazine on Linux assembly coding is Never Going To Happen.

Your comments

Webby things

mdgreaney (not verified) - August 27, 2009 @ 1:18pm

I'd quite like to see a slightly more advanced web design special edition, covering how to edit HTML files (the software to use once you want to go beyond a simple text editor, Dreamweaver comparisons), Creative Commons templates, images and designs, FOSS CMSs (comparisons and getting started guides), and maybe extending to beginner's PHP and Javascript (adding little fun widgets to your site).

I've got to the point where I've learned a hell of a lot about coding HTML and CSS, and am just getting into Javascript and PHP, but finding these a lot more difficult. I just want to add a few dynamic aspects to the site, and want software to take some of the drudgework out of repeating page layouts. A lot of the info out there seems very out of date, or more advanced than I'm ready for yet (especially hand-coding vast PHP pages and the like). As a web designer, sometimes I feel like the poor relation in the FOSS programmer family.

Why not?

ASM Coding Penguin (not verified) - August 27, 2009 @ 3:14pm

Why won't it happen Mr Hudzilla? are you chicken?
==================================================

section .data
hello: db 'Hudzilla da chicken!',10
helloLen: equ $-hello

section .text
global _start

_start:
mov eax,4
mov ebx,1
mov ecx,hello
mov edx,helloLen

int 80h

mov eax,1
mov ebx,0
int 80h

Lesson 1 for Mr Hudzilla

ASM Coding Penguin (not verified) - August 27, 2009 @ 3:38pm

Copy this program into a text editor of your choice and save it as hello.asm somewhere.

1. If you don't have a terminal or console open, open one now.

2. Make sure you are in the same directory as where you saved it.

3. To assemble the program, type nasm -f elf hello.asm
If there are any errors, NASM will tell you on what line you did what wrong.

4. Now type ld -s -o hello hello.o
This will link the object file NASM produced into an executable file.

5. Run your program by typing ./hello
(To run programs/scripts in the current directory, you must always type ./ before the name, unless the current directory is in the path.)

You should see Hello world! printed to the screen. Congratulations! You have just written your first assembly program in Linux and irritated the great Hudzilla at the same time!

There is a lot to be said for assembly.
You get to know your kernel and write pgms that have no dependencies.
Obviously no one in their right mind is going to write a whole gui front-end in assembler, but it has it applications.

A lot of linux drivers are written in assembler.

Are you allowed

sockets (not verified) - August 27, 2009 @ 8:54pm

To tell us what some of the articles are going to be? I need something exciting to look forward to :P

Small Business Special Edition

Zummerzet Penguin (not verified) - August 28, 2009 @ 7:04pm

Not just an article, but a whole special edition about FOSS for Small Business!

Pros and cons of FOSS vs proprietary
Training, support
Migration win/Mac to FOSS
Choosing a distro - paid or free, access to expert support, ease of maintenance
Hardware issues
Do everything online? Hosting, backup, local storage?
Broadband - landline, mobile or both
Business software - accounts, point-of-sale, CRM,
Web presence - online sales, website, wiki, forums, community-of-interest
VOIP
Does anyone already provide a one-stop-shop for the small business user?

Good luck!

Alternative DEs

LoL (not verified) - September 16, 2009 @ 12:13am

Only properly this time ... i.e. More than two pages of out-of-date info on out-of-date releases - Yes I *am* referring to LXF's previous ... and decidedly odd ... decision to cover Enlightenment DR16

Obviously, I'd like one on E17, but I'm not greedy and wouldn't mind if three or four pages were dedicated to something else - Like how to design good graphics for E17, for instance and the best tools to use to that end

Or, how about a roundup of Enlightenment-based distros?

Oh, alright, any DE then ... So long as it isn't KDE/Gnome

LXF could do specials on other alternative DEs, covering each in depth - Say, one on Blackbox based distros, another on Ratpoison based distros, etc.

Liveware

LoL (not verified) - September 16, 2009 @ 12:14am

Alife / Liveware, call it what you want ... A special on it!

Other *nixes

LoL (not verified) - September 16, 2009 @ 12:16am

What *are* the differences between Unix, linux, minix, BSD, Solaris, etc.?

Why pick one over another?

How about a special python issue?

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - December 8, 2009 @ 5:39pm

How about a collection of all your Python sections?

*** AND A BIG REQUEST for a digital subscription ***

I purchased a netbook to reduce the amount of paper (publications/books) I need to carry around to do my job. I am slowly converting all my subscriptions over to digital (pdf), please..... offer a digital subscription...

Thank You,

Mike