Customer Rating:  
Summary: Best Linux user magazine
Comment: This is, in my view, the best "using Linux" magazine on the market. There's a lot of information in each issue, it's an entertaining read, and the coverage is broad enough that you're likely to learn a fair amount if you read it cover to cover.
The quality is sometimes uneven, though. The "Roundup" feature, in particular, has of late used such narrow review criteria that it feels like looking through a keyhole. The all white male editorial staff that they seem to have settled on can be annoying as well. As others have pointed out, though, the biggest negative to this magazine is the fact that it's only available in paper form with an accompanying DVD and, outside of the UK, an astonishing subscription price. I'd love to keep getting it, but have a hard time justifying to myself a subscription price that's now north of $15 US per issue. When we start talking that kind of money I'd think that I'd rather donate it to open source projects.
Customer Rating:
Summary: from best to better
Comment: A couple years ago, this was the BEST source of Linux applications reviews and news from the field. Also with highly interesting tutorials, that you could NOT find somewhere else, for the pro and beginner alike. It was probably worth the high price tag. These days, the magazine kind of repeats itself, reviews of same-o apps from precedent years, most of the time not worth citing for the minor additions from rev. 0.7 to 0.8 and so on.. Also the tutorials seem to have lost some of the insight and edginess from a couple years ago- definitely not worth the price tag; especially with high bandwidth easily available in the States, you are better off sometimes just downloading your own distro's and/or huge apps. Just as a suggestion, in the spirit of yesteryear: why won't they write a cool script to parse the kernel sources, and fetch only what you need for your hardware instead of the huge 40MB plus of kernel sources? Most people would probably care for x86, and maybe ppc, seldom maybe sparc ! They could put THAT on the dvd, and renew the interest (could be fun to do, relatively easy and in the process they could add in some stellar tutorials on how they did it too ...)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great magazine, HORRIBLE PRICING!!
Comment: There are several Linux magazines out there, but this one, Linux Format is probably #1, Linux Pro Magazine is probably #2. However, they are priced ridiculously high...about $150 to $200 per year!!! NOT BEGINNER FRIENDLY!!
It is more than about time the Linux FORMAT started offering subscriptions without the DVDs or even better - an online .PDF version to lower the costs. Until then, I will stick with the MANY online resources and FREE online magazines out there.
Linux is about freedom and being advanced...being cutting edge and thinking outside the box, yet Linux Format continues to "stay the course" and only offer a subscription with DVD. The magazines pile up, the DVDs never see the light of day (how many distros can you possibly test drive in a year for God's sake???) and your money gets wasted.
As far as I am concerned and as much as I love the writing behind Linux Format, I think the executive people behind it are ripping us all off.
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