The official Linux Steam client has been released, and the company behind Steam is celebrating by offering some serious discounts on Linux titles. We thought we'd help you choose the best by plundering our own archives for reviews of games now available on Steam, and making them available to you for free!

So, without wasting any more time, here they are:

Title: Boybands

In this episode: KDE 4.10 has been released and includes lots of Qt Quick enhancements. Ubuntu Phones are going to be available in October. Samsung laptops are breaking after a Linux installation and the 'Model A' Raspberry Pi is available now. Hear our discoveries, your own opinions in our Open Ballot and our brand new old section, Challenge Us!

With Linux continuing its steady rise to world domination, we thought we'd ask you what you think has been the greatest moment for Linux since the start of the millennium.

We've been asked to help promote what looks like an incredible initiative. The Sonar Project hopes to fund the development of a Linux distribution focused on accessibility, and the campaign is looking to raise $20,000 through Indiegogo, a crowd funding site. But the project could also benefit from people with graphic design skills as well as those who can simply help spread the word.

For more information, put far more eloquently, here's the essential link:
http://www.indiegogo.com/sonar

Microsoft has been alienating its users by making pointless user interface changes, dropping support for its instant messenger app and not providing software that will play a DVD.

We can either: a) Point and laugh like Nelson the bully from The Simpsons; or b) show the poor, huddled masses of Windows users that there is a better way. Or, if you don't use Windows and don't know anybody who does, you can simply marvel at how much better off you are because you use Linux, and congratulate yourself on your sound judgement.

Title: Megaconz

In this episode: Canonical is to launch a phone. Fedora 18 has been released. Friends of Gnome are looking for money and Valve is to make a Linux-powered games console. Hear our first discoveries of 2013 and how you'd like the podcast to improve in season 5.

It's (well into) the new year. Our hangovers have abated, and we're about to start work on the new series of the podcast.

As regular listeners will know, we've been following the same format for a while:

News,
Discovery of the week,
Rants and raves,
Speak your brains,
Open ballot

We want to refresh it a bit, so we thought we'd ask you, dear listeners, what new category you'd like to hear. Perhaps an old on that you'd like reinstated, or something new that you think would fit in with the TuxRadar style. Or perhaps you think we're perfect and wouldn't change a thing.

It’s a Minty-licious issue as we take a look at the leader of the Distrowatch charts, and ask how it came to be what it is today.

Linux Mint has redefined what it means to be a modern, sleek operating system and it's not even six years old. In recent years it's gained popularity by standing firm in the face of desktop change, but it's about much more than just an applications menu.

Title: Merry Christmas!

In this episode: Samba 4 and Linux 3.7 have been released. Raspberry Pi is auctioning off new models. Humble Bundle had a THQ special without Linux support, and THQ has since filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Valve's Steam console has been confirmed and the Linux Steam client is now an open beta.The Internet remains free but UK Pirate Party forced to shut their proxy server after pressure from BPI, and the Snooper's Charter is now uncharted. All this plus our discoveries, your brains, and the internet famous Open Ballot.

"Canonical is kicking off the New Year with a bang, and launching a brand new Ubuntu product. We’ll be holding an exclusive event hosted by Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Ubuntu project, to give full details of what we believe is the next generation of cross platform operating system."

Usually press releases get redirected to /dev/null, but a guy dropping off a brown envelope full of non-sequential £20 notes little bird told us that this is going to be interesting. However, we don't know any more than this.

Sorry for the lack of updates. We're manically trying to finish 1.5 issues before Christmas. But we just wanted to let you know that, to coincide with the launch of Google Magazines in the UK, Linux Format is now available on Google's magazine store - £4.99 per issue, £3.99 with a rolling subscription or £44.99 for the year. As always, DVD images are freely downloadable from http://www.linuxformat.com/archives. Issue 166 (the zombie one) should also be available on the Ubuntu Software Centre.

Title: Papa Mau

As promised in this week's Open Ballot (and thanks for your fantastic contributions), here's our own distro contest from issue 162 of Linux Format magazine.

Our annual distro competition is as close to a tradition as we get here at LXF Towers. We do it because we love distributions – we love their variety and the way that so much changes over the course of a year. If you want to see what conclusions we came to last year, for example, check out our previous feature, The best Linux distro of 2011.

But if we restricted our comparisons to the same old dominant stalwarts, our yearly parade of victors would look more like political oscillation than a reflection of Linux distribution development. Which is why this year we wanted to do something different...

As 2012 nears its cold, wet conclusion*, we're asking you to look back over the past year and let us know which distro you think deserves the award "Best distro 2012". If you're nominating a distro that's had more than one release, let us know which one.

Survive the Zumba apocalypse! Keep data, files and partitions safe when disaster strikes!

OK, we`re being a little bit daft about the zombies, but they`re a useful metaphor for all the things that can go wrong with data stored on a Linux box. Partitions go missing, files get deleted by accident, and zombies pull out the plug of your PC just as you`re saving something to disk. It`s bad juju, but with our guide to surviving data disaster you`ll be prepared.

As regular readers and podcast listeners will know, we were fortunate enough to meet Linus Torvalds at the end of July for an interview that was published in Linux Format 163. Well, here it is - complete with Linus' attempts to defend PulseAudio, the moment he nearly threw us out when he finds an iPhone, and his opinions on everything from Android and Apple's Macbook Air, to KDE, Gnome and the Raspberry Pi.

Thanks, Linus

The Linux kernel is what everything else runs on top of, so it's the key to everything that a Linux device can do. It's in your Android phone. It's in the computers that run the servers at Google, Amazon and all the other web services that we take for granted...

Ben says:

I’ve been an Ubuntuer for several years. I know some people look down on it as only suitable for beginners and other non techy folk, but I disagree. It’s the distro used by Ken Thompson, the father of Unix (admittedly he uses it because it’s the distro used by Google, his employer, but I still feel like I’m in good company).

Title: Happy Thanksgiving

Yes, yes, we know this has been said every year since ... well, pretty much since Linux had a desktop environment. But this time it's different. It really is, because this time we're not talking about Linux as we know it, but in its ChromeOS guise.

Title: Sylvia