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Linux Software

Linux Journal 1999 Readers' Choice 28

Carlie Fairchild writes "Linux Journal opened its polls for its fifth annual Readers' Choice Awards. The polls will be open until October 15, 1999. It's your opportunity to vote for your favorite Linux software, hardware and companies." Seems like there are quite a number of options in each category this year
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Linux Journal 1999 Readers' Choice

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  • For the life of me I can't find any mention of this on their webpage.

    I'm taking for granted this is a real-world dead-trees thing? (the blurb thing wasn't terribly clear about it)
  • Readers choice awards rule. /. for everything! Except best distribution. :)


    -- Moondog
  • Oh. Now. Don't I look foolish. It's the link right under the front cover.

  • Anyone else notice they linked to everyone else but Slashdot in the best website category? Is this retaliation for the inevitable Slashdot effect the site's going to be getting in a few hours, or are they just being nice because they don't think Slashdot can handle the LJ effect?
  • I mean, xmms is pretty much the best audio tool on the linux platform, and we don't get to choose it? The only mp3 player I noticed is mpg123. Is this because the lj guys doesn't know better, or is it a secret plot to destroy peter, olle and the rest of the swedish mafia? :)
  • by trims ( 10010 ) on Thursday September 16, 1999 @05:38PM (#1678000) Homepage

    But I HATE these stupid "Reader's Choice", "Editor's Choice", "Best of 19xx", and all those other "awards" that magazines (in particular, but not exclusively) dole out on an annual (or even more frequently) basis.

    They always seem to miss several major contenders for the "award", and often are nothing more than a popularity contest. Even if they pretend to be based on merit, it's the opinion of Editors that get the choices in front of you to begin with.

    I don't want a popularity poll. I can get that from marketing material. You know, 4-color glossies? I want more, in-depth, substantive reviews of stuff. I want to know how to make stuff work together (something you hardly ever see anyone write about). I want to hear about stuff that I might not otherwise, so I can check it out myself.

    I'm not going to trust people I have no idea about as to the relative worth of a product that wins some "award". I'm going to talk to the 2 dozen friends and collegues that actually do the stuff to find out what works.

    Leave the "awards" to the Entertainment folks. That's about all they're good for.

    -Erik
    (feeling a bit cranky and crotchety)

  • Does anyone but me find it odd that under "favourite linux webpage" slashdot's the only one to not have a link to it?

  • by sdt ( 7606 )
    No xmms in the Audio section. Freshmeat.ORG instead of Freshmeat.NET (no, they are not the same. No Freshmeat.ORG is not likely to be anyone's favorite Linux site ;). And no BB in the demo section! BB is probably the most amazing demo I've ever seen (simply because it's in textmode ;).

    Sure, they offer a lot of choice, but miss out on some important stuff. And the freshmeat.org thing is just plain funny :P.

    (oh and this is meant to be *constructive* criticism ;).
  • under favorite platform they had abacus. 'Course, I had to vote for that, spefifying Linacus:)
  • by pb ( 1020 )
    Click on the 1999 Reader's Choice thingy.

    Favorites:

    Distribution: tomsrtbt!

    Development Tool: where's 'as'?

    Shell: where's sash, or lsh?

    Text Editor: where's ed? Ed is the standard!

    Web Browser: lynx! Much better than arena, lynx handles tables and frames better without crashing!

    Linux Book: why don't they just all read the man pages?

    Web Page: Slashdot! Note that they didn't link to us: that won't save them from The Slashdot Effect!

    Linux Game: Angband! Well... just because I'm addicted.

    Platform: abacus! It'd have to be a pretty big one to run my turing machine, but I bet they've ported Linux to the abacus.

    Mailer: telnet xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 25

    X-server: Xvfb -- it has the best interface.

    Window Manager: Who needs a window manager? (see previous)

    Database: cat > new.db

    Backup Utility: dump

    Audio Tool: cat foo.au > /dev/audio

    Programming Language: Machine Code! Hex? Does ed have a hex mode now? :)

    Demo: Does it use curses? Come on, now!

    Disclaimer: this survey does not necessarily reflect *anyone's* opinions. I hope.
  • ... I mean, I like Linux and all, but doesn't this look like they're purposely puffing up the list of things you can use with Linux, just to justify even having the survey in the first place? If you want to know what columns I read the most, just /ask/; there's no need to dress up your reader survey as some gala awards thing.

    "Favorite Communications Board?" Why not have "Favorite Font" and "Favorite Jumper Style" ("I love the half-height blue ones, but those full height black ones suck!!")? Most of the categories aren't substantive enough for me to even have a favorite, much less take the time to vote for it.

    Oh yeah, and in most every other field of endeavour, it's common for Reader's Choice Awards to feature choices which _weren't_ available last year, and the year before that, and ... you get the gist. 95% of those products existed last year -- they could just reprint the outcome of the 1998 voting.

    That is all. I'm sure this will now be moderated into oblivion by those who see all Linux-related criticism as heresy.

    cheers,
    mike

  • when your choice for Favorite Linux Game is BattleBall [utexas.edu]

  • heh, well.. they *do* supply rpms, and I've never had any problems compiling xmms.. but I guess some it's considered hard for some people.. come over to #xmms on efnet and we'll help you :) The developers hang there as well, and they are rather friendly
  • of course the miss people/programs/etc...

    thats what the "Other" catagory coupled with the "Comments" option are for.


    john
  • Don't laugh, but for the last 9 months, my bookmark was to www.slashdot.org, which caused me to be logged in on the front page, but not on any interior pages. I switched it, and now I'm like moderating and stuff...

    Surfing the net and other cliches...
  • Because everyone already knows the URL... :)

    --

  • :Favorite Text Editor or Word Processor

    Is 'OR' truly an appropriate operand in this case?

  • (slips him $20)

    Here's the homepage:
    XTux [adelaide.net.au]
  • Nah, they probably assumed that if you don't know slashdot's url, you don't know nuffin, and it ain't your favorit:)
  • Most people who vote in "Readers' Choice" polls simply vote for the product they use, so it turns into a measure of product sales. Few voters have actually evaluated and compared many products in a class.

    Actually, I'd love a Reader's Choice poll where all the voters had fully evaluated the field, taking advantage of collective opinion. Unfortunately, that's not what normally happens.

  • Slashdot has a link....

    The question is, should I vote for it...
    Hmm, well, it'll make my descision a lot easier if about five points of negative karma disapeared, ehem, Rob Malda, ehem.

    meanwhile, I'm enjoying the "comments" space. I get to tell them why i'm voting! Whoo Hoo!
  • That one should be two separate categories.
  • I mean, xmms is pretty much the best audio tool on the linux platform, and we don't get to choose it?

    I thought there was more than that - there were several categories where my favourite wasn't one of the choices. I suppose they can't list everything, but for example for mailers there are a lot more around than they have on the list. Did anyone else find themselves just filling in the comment box for each category?

  • They seem to have updated their poll... not freshmeat.net is there (not freshmeat.org) and slashdot is in there as a choice... they might've updated others choices too, I just noticed those two errors/ommisions in a quick skim through the comments.

    no, i don't use preview...

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