First sites I read about Linux was slashdot.org and freshmeat.net. It was about 10 years ago, when Internet came to our city (that time I was living in Ukhta, Komi Republic). Other great place was the Linux Documentation Project site, which changed its domain several times (if my memory serves me well, initially it was on sunsite.unc.edu, then linuxdoc.org, then tldp.org, ...). The good thing was Linux distros included a lot of HOWTOs on the CDs those days — and since Internet access was not easy to have it helped a lot.

freshmeat.net helped a lot. You need a program to do this? Search freshmeat.net for it. More to say, I was reading it almost every day, keeping some track of new stuff that appears. Reading freshmeat.net is pretty much the same as reading your friends page at livejournal.com. For me personally, freshmeat.net was like a daily dose of new software releases info. I gave up reading it when it grew bigger. Still, say once a month or so I scan through their page. It doesn't actually make sense since you'll be better of googling for something you need.

Slashdot was insightful — a lot of interesting news. I never read the comments that time, just the articles themselves.

Later I discovered lwn.net and linuxtoday.com. LWN.net was (and still it!) much more interesting than slashdot, linux-only, with deep analysis and more details. I remember the time it was a single weekly page — I was getting the new issues when I had Internet access, and published it on the corporate intranet for those poor souls who didn't have Internet.

Later, then LWN.net became a "pay for the last issue" I was one of the first subscribers (yeah! I even had a credit card then -- guys were paying me to work on UdmSearch, nowdays known as MnogoSearch). Later I didn't have a credit card so I was unable to subscribe. Nowdays it's 50/50 - periodically I am susbcribed to LWN, but not all the times. It's a shame really - I should be subscribed always.

LinuxToday.com was (and still is) a collector/aggregator of linux news from a lot of different sites. I gave up reading it regularly when they changed their spartan design to something terrible, lots of boxes here and there, lots of ads etc. etc.

Russian Linux sites deserves a separate article. opennet.ru is very good and professional. linux.org.ru is old-time favorite, and I am especially addicted to black backgrounds, but the bunch of trolls/lemmings/red-eyed-pioneers makes me mad sometimes. linux.ru.net is as good as linux.org.ru, but their design is worse and it is not convenient to read their backlog. linuxnews.ru is basically dead since kiltum@lj left the company.