Yesterday, I am crusing my local super market. I have a few minutes to kill before I must drop off my car at the shop. So, I drop by the large newsstand. To my surprize (and I have looked for the past 4 years), I see Linux Journal.

Although, it was hatched in 1994, I have seen Linux Journal on the newsstand of book stores and speciality shops for a number of years. The first time I noticed LJ at Barnes and Noble was 1999 – three years after I became a subscriber. At the time, I thought to myself Linux has arrived.

During this time, I was envious of the Windows and MacIntosh trade rags that were available at a generic newsstand, such as the one at my super market. I kept thinking, Linux is so much better (philosophically and technically) than those other operating systems.

I think that Linux’s arrival on the computing scence (now over 10 years since its inception) is happening in two phases – the first phase — where technical people seek out technical journals happened four years ago. The result is that many companies, large and small, now rely on Linux for the server environment. I think if this as the business era adoption of Linux. Much has been written about this phenomenon.

The existence of Linux Journal (and Linux magazine) seems to harken a new era of Linux – the ‘home user’ era. The era where technical writers embrace products like Open Office and Mom can use Lindows

This should be a fun time for Linux as the massive ‘home user’ market embraces the penguin.