Sorry if things look like “WhyDontYou” are taking offence against PC magazines in general but somethings are too annoying to pass over! Take this months PCW for example.<\/p>\n

Previously, we have ranted at some length about the crackpottery that is involved in “pricing” cover disks – well, we have had no impact on the market \ud83d\ude42 and this months PCW proudly boasts software worth<\/em> “more than” \u00c2\u00a3365 on its “massive” 8GB cover DVD. I have already posted about the pricing of cover disks (read more<\/a>) so I wont do much on that for now.<\/p>\n

The made up value aside, this is definite<\/strong> proof that they now have much more space on the disks than they know what to do with. This month’s cover disk includes an amazingly esoteric array of pointless things – for example four (count ’em) linux distributions – Ubuntu 6.04, Slax, Gentoo and Fedora Core. Not that getting any of these to work will be easy – you have to load the DVD and then burn off the iso you want (is that really easier than DL’ing the iso in the first place – especially as the magazine gives no advice on this).<\/p>\n

This leads me to the critical tipping point of the magazine. I can let most of the nonsense and padding it fills itself with slide. It is a magazine after all. I can ignore the vastly over priced cost of the magazine (although only just…). I can ignore the mountains of advertisments (which are there to keep the cost down…..) but its getting close now.<\/p>\n

The killer is the Linux\/Unix section.<\/p>\n

What a surprise. PCW dedicates (and has done since the dawn of time) a whole two pages to the real operating system of choice – LINUX. Now, this is a magazine which has felt the need to put four distros on the cover disk so you would think they were up to speed with providing information and advice on the open source OS. Sadly this is not the case.<\/p>\n

Once more, this is just another case of two more pages on Ubuntu. Argh. Why!?!<\/p>\n

I could understand it if this was either a one off, or if Ubuntu had some quirks which were common to Linux. Neither is the case. I ranted about this last month<\/a> – obviously PCW dont listen to me though \ud83d\ude09 and they have done it again.<\/p>\n

The title of this months section is “Resolving Ubuntu Screen setup” – what madness this is. There is nothing they go on about that carries over to other distros – it even begins by mentioning how “one of ubuntu’s biggest drawbacks” is the lack of admin utilities other distros have… The whole article is written as if Ubuntu sponsor PCW. Maybe they do…<\/p>\n

Is this the thin end of the wedge? Has Ubuntu been working behind the scenes to achieve Linux domination?<\/p>\n

Well, I have no idea but I do know that the only way I will get next month’s PCW is if someone gives it to me…<\/p>\n