We're gearing up to record our next podcast, and we want you - yes YOU! - to contribute your views in our Open Ballot section. This time the question is, out of all the changes we've seen in the Linux world in the last year, what's your favourite? If you want to go big and say "all of Fedora 13", or if you want to go small and cite the SSE improvements introduced into Glibc 2.11, we don't mind as long as your stick to our simple rules: keep it short, and use a name other than "Anonymous Penguin."

So, if you want your opinion in our podcast, post a comment below!

We're gearing up to record a new episode of our great Linux podcast, and you - yes, you! - get to have a say. The question we're asking is this: if you had the resources, what single thing would you change? Would you merge KDE and Gnome? Would you introduce a new package manager? (eek!) Would you find all mentions of "Linux" and replace it with GNU/Linux?

If you'd like your views read out on our podcast, please post your answer below. Make sure you include a name, and please avoid running off a large list - pick one thing and one thing only!

Updated: We've had a number of reader requests to make available some of the imagery we use in Linux Format magazine. Naturally we're happy to share with you all, so we've put this page online where we'll upload artwork as it's requested.

The URL for this page is fixed so you can come back here and check for updates later. As with our podcast, we're releasing this artwork under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0, so feel free to monkey with it if you want.

For our next podcast, we want to know whether the primary reason you use open source software is for its freedom or for its function. It's a choice between the freedom to potentially redistribute and modify the code, and the festival of functionality that can be found within most open source software when compared against other tools at the same price.

We realise that, for most, the answer is likely to be a mixture of both, but we're interested in which you think is the most important. If you'd like your views read out on our podcast, please post your answer below. Anonymous Penguins post at their own peril.

With the news that HP intends to use Linux-based WebOS on its Slate tablet, do you think this is Linux's big chance to take on Apple's iPad, or do you think WebOS on Palm Pre didn't do enough to justify you parting with your cash to buy a Slate? Or do you perhaps think that an Android tablet has a better chance of success?

If you'd like your views read out on our podcast, please post your answer below and make sure you use a name other than Anonymous Penguin.

Not everyone can contribute code, documentation or bug reports to free software projects. But there are other ways to support the community, one of which is by making a small donation. The Libre Graphics Meeting (LGM) is an annual working conference for free software graphics application users and developers. The fifth meeting takes place 27-30 May 2010 in Brussels, Belgium. Teams from GIMP, Inkscape, Blender, Krita, Scribus, Hugin, Open Font Library and many other graphics projects will gather to improve their software and discuss new ideas for interoperability and shared standards.

The problem is, it costs money to cover travel costs for the volunteer developers and presenters that would otherwise not be able to travel to Belgium, and they need to raise $10,000 to help everyone get there. So, if you want to do your part to contribute just a little bit to the future of free software, please donate to their cause - every donation, even $10, helps.

All donations are tax deductible for US taxpayers. Larger donations from corporations and individuals can be done through the website or by contacting them directly at lgm@gnome.org. You can read more information at www.libregraphicsmeeting.org.

To encourage you to donate, we're going to make a simple promise: for every TuxRadar user who donates $50 or more, we'll produce another video tutorial like this one for the site. All you have to do is forward us the confirmation email from Pledgie for a contribution made between today and the start of LGM. So, you help the community, more top developers get to attend LGM and come up with awesome new ideas, and the world gets a new tutorial from TuxRadar - everyone's a winner!

So, Canonical has licensed H.264 for its partners. Is it a good thing? Should more distros strike deals that allow end users to play DVDs, watch Flash movies and more out of the box, or is it more important that we take a united stand in the name of Free Software and support free codecs like Theora?

We're due to record our next podcast in just under three hours, so don't delay - post your comment below and we'll read out the best on the show. Don't forget to use a name other than "Anonymous Penguin" otherwise we may just ignore you.

For our next podcast, we'd like to know what you think is the biggest threat to the future of Linux. We'll discuss the results, along with our own ideas, in our next episode, available on Thursday. Please leave some sort of name alongside your thoughts so that we don't end up reading out 20 comments from Anonymous Penguin!

If you've been too busy to visit the site every day, relax - here's our pick of unmissable features from recent days:

• Howto: Linux and Windows virtualization with KVM and Qemu
• Download free Gimp tutorial PDFs
• Build terminal commands with our easy tool
• Learn Python with our free tutorials
• Nine Linux projects in 90 minutes
• How to compile the Linux kernel
• Try the Linux desktop of the future!
• Get the best Twitter app for Linux
• The newbies guide to hacking the Linux kernel
• Brain Party - a fun game for all the family!

Plus there's much more to come - add us to your bookmarks or follow us on Identica or Twitter to make sure you don't miss a thing.

And remember, TuxRadar is brought to you by Linux Format magazine - the #1 source for Linux news, reviews, tutorials and wit, available from all good magazine outlets worldwide. Click here for the latest subscription deals and get 2000+ free PDFs of Linux learning!

Our kid Graham has an opinion piece up on TechRadar.com giving various reasons why he thinks Linux is struggling to break into the mainstream. But his third point - and the one that seems to have turned into a flash point for commenters - is that Linux just isn't attractive enough visually. He said:

"The biggest challenge is sexiness. There's very little of it in Linux unless you're an antisocial geek, and products like the Apple's iPad illustrate this massive divide painfully. As Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation, puts it, "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where's the magic?" Linux has the programmers, the managers, the community, the innovation, the time and the skill. But to succeed in 2010 and the coming decade, what it really needs is a magician or two."

Do you agree? Is Linux sexy enough for mainstream use, or does it still need more work? Perhaps a side issue is whether Linux needs to be sexy at all. Please post your views below for inclusion in our next podcast - don't forget to add a name other than Anonymous Penguin, and don't forget to provide some sort of explanation as to how you came about your answer. Pedants who happily answer that Linux is just a kernel might want to question whether they are indeed the "antisocial geeks" that Graham describes.

A recent campaign to add more videos to Wikipedia is being used to try and push the advantages of the open source Theora video format over those encumbered by patents. For our imminent podcast, we're asking whether you think this campaign will work despite poor results in a recent quality comparison, or whether this issue is less about quality and more about freedom.

The Free Software Foundation has always done a great job defending the various free software licences, promoting their use, and asking for Linux to be referred to as GNU/Linux. But we're asking whether, regardless of its good work in this field, the FSF has helped free software grow or whether its hard stance against proprietary software has harmed Linux up-take. Add your comments below, preferably answering "Yes, they're the voice of free software" or "No, I prefer open source and Linux without GNU."

If you wanted to learn about Linux, you might think spending $40 on a book is a smart investment. Well, we're here to tell you in our Entirely Unbiased Way that you're wrong, because we've got a better deal: for US$107 we'll give you 2,119 tutorials, features and reviews from Linux Format magazine to download as beautiful DRM-free PDFs. And whether you're in Canada, Australia, France, the UK or indeed anywhere else in the world, we've got an equally great price for you too.

You're probably thinking that's a great deal, but wait - there's more! Your money also gets you 13 monthly issues of Linux Format magazine for the next year, which means you get the magazine delivered to your door every issue wherever you are in the world, as well as all those magazines available to download as PDFs if you want them. Once your subscription expires, those PDFs you downloaded as still yours to keep, because we hate DRM as much as you. Plus, you also get our awesome free DVD with every issue, or you can download it through our BitTorrent server.

Still not convinced? Here we've put a list of just some - maybe half - of all the incredible content you get for your money. Feast your eyes on what you're missing out on, then, when you simply can't bear it any longer, click the button to subscribe online.

(PS: if you were wondering, it's $107 because of the conversion rate between Queen Elizabeth's very own British pounds and the US dollar - it fluctuates, see. If you wait two weeks it might get more expensive!)

KDE 4.4 is here, bringing with it improved support for social networking and online collaboration, plus thousands of bug fixes. The question is, do you intend to try it out? Post a comment below with your thoughts!

Usually our answers come down to a simple yes or no, but here you're welcome to prevaricate as much as you want - are you going to upgrade to 4.4 simply because your distro will sooner or later? Are you still using 3.5 and are going to stay there until you die? Are you a Gnome user tempted by all the new features, but unsure about switching desktop? Does the sheer number of bugs fixed scare you a little, or is it all progress in the right direction?

As per usual, we'll read out the best comments in our podcast, but please do make sure you leave a name other than Anonymous Penguin!

If you're a beginner who wants to learn Python programming, you've come to the right place. If you're a more advanced coder who wants to push their skills even further, we've got your covered there too. Below you'll find our list of code projects for Python: tutorials that help you learn Python without boring you to death with hello world nonsense - we want to help you learn how to Make Cool Things, and you'll learn along the way.

We'll be adding more tutorials as time goes by, but for now just jump in - click here to visit our Python tutorials page and get started!

(PS: if you're looking for all our coding tutorials regardless of language, visit our programming tutorials section)

As you probably already know, Firefox in Ubuntu 10.04 will use Yahoo as its default search engine because Canonical has struck a revenue-sharing deal with Yahoo. This potentially leaves us with a small dilemma: if you're an Ubuntu user then you probably want to help support the distro at least a little, but on the flip side Microsoft Bing is the search engine behind Yahoo, which means using the default means supporting Microsoft.

So, we're looking for your input: will you give Yahoo+Bing a try and help Ubuntu a little, or will changing to Google be the first thing you do on any 10.04 machine? Perhaps more importantly, is Canonical's move a step away from its free software roots while also arguably providing users with inferior search results by default, or just sound business sense?

Post your comments below, make your answers clear, and please provide a name other than Anonymous Penguin otherwise we're likely to ignore you. (NB: we'll be releasing the first podcast of season 2 on Thursday.)

If you've been following the Hudzilla Coding Academy - our free Mono and C# tutorial series - you'll be pleased to know that it's now available as a special edition magazine, on-sale worldwide and available online.

The magazine version includes another six all-new projects (taking the total to 15), many corrections to the original online text, plus dozens of new tips that take your knowledge further. So, if you're looking to learn to program and aren't sure where to start, Paul Hudson's Coding Academy takes you from zero to hero with minimum theory with maximum fun.

On the included DVD you'll find all the software you need to get started, pre-configured with all the source code from the projects in the magazine. In short, it's all you need to get started and take control of your computer today.

Click the Buy Online button below to buy the magazine now wherever you are in the world, or click here to see what's inside the magazine.

 

We just stumbled across this video of a happy reader getting his copy of the world's best Linux magazine, and we think he deserves a free year's subscription to Linux Format for his trouble. We're always happy to see this sort of thing, so if you upload to YouTube a video of yourself reading/enjoying/reviewing your copy of LXF then send us a link in the comments below, we'll pick the coolest/funniest video and give its creator a free year's subscription too.

(PS: if you're already a subscriber, we'll add a free year to your existing subscription. RPCJerkobi: drop us an email at paul.hudson@futurenet.com to claim your prize)

Here's a quick heads-up about the latest issue of Linux Format. We're giving it a special mention here because we're expecting it to sell out quickly! Why, you ask? Well, just like every issue it's packed to the gills with Linux and free software reviews, features and guides, but this month we've gone the extra mile:

• A monster double-sided, 8GB DVD with Ubuntu 9.10 (special Linux Format remaster with 300 extra packages), Mandriva 2010 and OpenSUSE 11.2
• A free, bonus wallchart: one side is crammed with quick Linux tips, shortcuts and links, while the other side has awesome Ubuntu artwork for your wall

LXF 127 is available in UK newsagents today, and for US-based readers it should be stocked in your nearest Barnes & Noble or Borders soon!

Update: copies have already sold out at our online store, so you'll need to buy it in brick-and-mortar stores instead. Heck, buy five, put them on eBay, and make yourself a tidy profit.

Update part 2: we've got some more copies available in our online store, so grab one before they sell out again!

The Software Freedom Law Center has announced a lawsuit against 14 companies, including Best Buy, JVC and Samsung, for GPL violations relating to BusyBox, which is a GPL-licensed bundle of Unix tools. The SFLC said it "gave each defendant ample time to comply with the requirements of the license", but what do you think: is suing necessary in today's world, or does it reflect badly on the Free Software community? Moreover, should we be encouraging the naming and shaming of offenders, or does it generate bad feeling towards the GPL?

As per usual, the best comments will be used in our podcast, so please leave a name other than Anonymous Penguin, please state your view clearly, then back it up with some sort of logical reasoning.