From The Chief Editor's Desk...

Seventeen years ago, in July 2009, I was named the Chief Editor of The PCLinuxOS Magazine. It’s a position that I’ve held ever since.

I took over after one of the largest upheavals in PCLinuxOS history. The then editor of The PCLinuxOS Magazine, essentially, tried to hold the magazine hostage in an effort to kill the magazine.

For about a year prior to July 2009, the magazine would not appear on a regular, monthly basis. The then editor said that there wasn’t enough to write about. During a sabbatical by Texstar for health reasons, a division of allegiance emerged, with some of the developers threatening to take over PCLinuxOS. The then editor “sided” with that faction that attempted their coup of PCLinuxOS.

That forced Texstar to return from his sabbatical earlier than he planned to reassert his control over the distro that he had created. In the aftermath, many members of that attempted coup fled, vowing to make their own distro (which, by any and all reasonable metrics, failed). The previous editor of the magazine went with them after Texstar essentially fired him. It’s needless to say that trust in the magazine was at an all-time low.

Back then, we had another forum where development ideas were put forth and tried out. It was called MyPCLinuxOS. Our former and departed moderator Archie Arevalo put out a call to resurrect the magazine, which, at that time, had been published on a mostly monthly basis (with the exception of the tenure of the former editor). Having a journalism background (I had worked as a photojournalist for a number of years before then, both for local daily newspapers and for the wire services), I immediately threw my name into the hat to be the person to lead that resurrection of the magazine.

Initially, Archie told me that this “job” would last only a year or two, and then I would “hand it over” to someone else. Except, no one else emerged to take over. Our first assistant editor, Andrew Strick, was in law school, and is now employed as an Attorney Editor for Thomson Reuters. He was focused on his education and career, and didn’t stick around too long. Meemaw also joined me soon after me taking on the job as the magazine’s chief editor as the magazine’s assistant editor (for a while, we listed both Andrew and Meemaw as assistant editors), but she made it clear that she had no interest in taking over as the chief editor. Over time, we worked to reestablish Texstar’s trust in the magazine.

And, here I am, 17 years later, still pumping out a new issue of The PCLinuxOS Magazine every month. In the time that I've been the chief editor, we’ve never missed putting out a monthly issue. And, to put the cherry on top of the cake, we’ve also put out several special editions of the magazine. So much for there not being enough to write about, huh?

In the beginning, we tapped into the real, everyday talents of other forum members, such as ms_meme, georgetoon, and YouCanToo. We continue to do that to this day. We brainstormed and came up with numerous regular and recurring columns, as well as tapping into anything that looked like it might create a nice article that PCLinuxOS users might be interested in. Most of all, we’ve made a concerted effort to ensure that every issue of the magazine includes something for as many users as possible, from rank beginners to more experienced Linux users.

As with any Linux distro, we’ve seen our fair share of people and characters come and go. We’ve seen some of our forum members and magazine supporters succumb to health problems and criminal actions. Yet, through it all, we never missed putting out a monthly issue.

Having started in September 2006, The PCLinuxOS Magazine is the oldest community based Linux magazine in existence. Certainly, we’ve run our fair share of reprint articles from the open source community, but we’ve never missed putting out an issue. Some of our “competitors” have released issues with blank pages in them because a promised article never materialized. We’ve experienced the same before, but always found things to fill the pages of the magazine. If you just look around, there’s ample topics to fill the pages of a community based Linux magazine, and we’ve proven that resoundingly.

Over my tenure as the magazine’s chief editor, I’ve personally seen a lot of things happen. First, my son Ryan was born, followed three years later by my daughter, Lexi (it’s the nickname she goes by … her actual name is Alexandra). My kids have started school, become involved in Cub Scouts and Scouting, and we’ve started karate classes as a family. I’ve retired from a 35-year career as a respiratory therapist working in the hospital. One of our forum moderators was killed by his estranged soon-to-be ex-wife. Another lost his life to cancer. Archie appears to have succumbed to the injuries he suffered in an automobile accident. The list of those we've lost goes on for a good bit. Those I've listed are just a sampling of that list. But still, we forge ahead with the same mission that we started with 17 years ago.

Even 17 years later, I actually still love the “job” of serving as the chief editor of The PCLinuxOS Magazine. Although I don’t have a “crystal ball,” I don’t foresee me giving up this position any time soon. After all of this time, it has become just another thing that I do.

In another way of looking at it, I started with issue 30 as the chief editor. Including this issue, we’re up to issue 234. Add in another 15 special editions of The PCLinuxOS Magazine that we’ve published, and we’re up to 219 issues … and still counting. And I can’t even begin to count the number of articles I’ve written over the past 17 years!

So, not only have I been heading up The PCLinuxOS Magazine for the past 17 years, but 2026 also marks the 20th anniversary of the magazine. So here’s to many, many, many more years to come!

This month’s cover celebrates the 2026 FIFA World Cup, showing Tux dressed in a soccer jersey, holding a soccer ball (football to the “rest of the world”), in front of the flags of the nations participating in this year’s tournament. If you’re not too familiar with the quadrennial FIFA World Cup, check out this guide. To see when your favorite team might be playing, check out this listing of matches. Some of the matches are being played about five miles (8 Km) away from my house, at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City (don’t worry … I won’t be able to attend any matches … the tickets are obscenely priced). This image was created with Bing Image Creator, using the following “creation” criteria: “Linux mascot Tux dressed in a soccer jersey, holding a soccer ball, surrounded by the flags of the teams participating in the 2026 FIFA World Cup.”

Until next month, I bid you peace, happiness, serenity, prosperity, and continued good health!