Linux Journal Ceases Publication

Linux Journal ^ | 12/01/17 | Self

[zeugma]

I saw elsewhere on the net, that Linux Journal is ceasing publication.

From their homepage:
Linux Journal Ceases Publication
EOF It looks like we’re at the end, folks. If all goes according to a plan we’d rather not have, the November issue of Linux Journal was our last.

[zeugma]

I know this is not going to be of interest to everyone, but some of the long-time linux nerds might be familiar with Linux Journal.

It's the only magazine subscription I've maintained for over 20 years. It was clear a few years ago that the magazine was in trouble, because they had to go to an all-electronic format.

One of the reasons I liked Linux Journal was because, unlike most periodicals, they didn't dumb down their content much. Sure, there was always newbie stuff, but they also would have serious articles about complex system management issues, and howtos. There was something pretty worthwhile in just about every issue for me. Sometimes they'd get a bit too programmer-specific for my tastes, but I almost always learned something of use.

Then, there was the Python special issue they did on the Python programming language many years ago. The cover was a very Monty Pythonesqe image of a fellow facing away from the camera playing a piano in the nude. They got more hate mail for that issue than I think anything else, other than when they actually eliminated the dead-tree issue. I'll admit that I didn't really care for that particular change, but I understood the financial reasons behind it. Fortunately, the electronic versions allowed you to choose between epub, mobi, and pdf versions, so you could read it on just about anything.

For me, I really liked the in-depth articles they had on various technologies. It wasn't always something I was planning or able to use, but it helped to keep me at least somewhat current with what was going on out there in the world of Linux.

Sad to see it go. May have to see if they have any of the DVDs left that contain every issue published to date, just for my archives. I generally buy one of those every 5 years.

[Buckeye McFrog]

I only subscribed for the centerfolds.

[SteveH]

usenix proceedings continue...

[zeugma]

The Python Cover - apparently I remembered it a bit wrong.

[familyop]

It’s getting harder to find anything worth reading with search engines. Many pages of search engine spam hits are coming up first.

[zeugma]

I only subscribed for the centerfolds.

mmmm... naked silicon!

[familyop]

Need a good search engine that eliminates many of the vendors and other search engine spammers (spammers like eHow, wikiHow, etc.).

[AppyPappy]

Our mainframe runs Linux. It really loses its luster when that happens.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Ping.

[the_Watchman]

Our mainframe runs Linux. It really loses its luster when that happens.

Our company provides conversion from mainframe to Linux. I wrote the mandatory file locking module for our batch job launcher. I also wrote a generation file manager.

We recently completed a migration for a French government agency. Their software had been split between IBM MVS and Bull HN GCOS 8 on about 6 different platforms. Back in the 1990's the mainframes had been distributed in various cities around France. We migrated them to VM's running Red Hat Linux.

[AppyPappy]

Our Vagrant development VM’s for Java are Linux. We moved the mainframe from Solaris to Linux so it wasn’t a great leap. vi, grep, mailx all work the same. But damn, I’ve been using a command prompt since the early 80’s. I thought I was done with that.

[Uncle Miltie]

“IBM MVS”

I remember that .... from the early 1980s.

[Wally_Kalbacken]

Just think of Byte magazine or PC World back in the 83-85 time-frame. Each issue was about 20% more pages then the previous one. I think they got PC World into the 400+ page range several times. It was like getting a phone book in your mailbox.

[dhs12345]

But what fun! Before the days of the internet. :)

[nevadapatriot]

>“IBM MVS”
>
>I remember that .... from the early 1980s.

Don’t forget CICS

[Uncle Miltie]

I’m working through the denouement of my career in technology.

Accenture
Egghead
Software Company #1
Software Company #2
Software Company #3
Microsoft
Distribution

I was there for most all of it. The first IBM AT with a hard drive arrived the same day I started. Wrote JCL onto punch cards. Gonna go buy me an AI/Machine Learning piece of S/W this year. Wow, how times fly.

[glorgau]

cat ./linux_journal > null

[Uncle Miltie]

CICS, IMS, VSAM, JCL, COBOL,

You betcha!

[cynwoody]

Computer Shopper was the heavyweight. At the front of the book was about 100 pages of articles, printed on good paper. The rest was endless ads, printed on flimsy paper that soiled your fingers with ink. It started out in the eighties and just got thicker and thicker through the nineties, until it topped 800 pages. Then along came online shopping, and its growth reversed, getting thinner and thinner until finally ceasing print publication sometime in the 2000s.

[HonkyTonkMan]

The marketeers and spammers have succeeding in bringing the mediocre to the top with search engines. eHow, WikiHow and other garbage appear in the first results, but never seem to fully address a problem or question.

Helpful guidance appears locked away in the darkweb or regions inaccessible by search engines.