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Red Hat Software Businesses

Free Red Hat 6.0 CDs 194

Posted by CmdrTaco from the cheap-at-twice-the-price dept.
Anthony Fuentes writes "You can pre-order the GPL Redhat 6.0 CD at LSL for $0.00. " This looks legit- shipping looks like about $8 for UPS, but it does appear to be a free CD, so if you aren't blessed with a T1, check this out.
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Free Red Hat 6.0 CDs More

Free Red Hat 6.0 CDs

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  • Re:Pointing out $1.01 in savings? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    $1.01 will buy almost exactly 5 packages of Ramen Noodles at the local Mega Market. Sometimes, when they are on sale, I can get 7.

    Don't knock a buck when you don't have a buck. Such is the college life. :)

    Ramen Soup recipe (food on the cheap):

    1 Package, Oriental Flavor Ramen noodles
    1 cup rice
    Kimchee (available at your local Korean Food Store)

    Cook rice. about 3 mintues before rice is done, (about 12-15 minutes), start cooking Ramen. Both should be done simultaneously (or thereabouts). Add water to Ramen (lots of it), add rice, add a little kimchee, bring to boil. You now have Ramen & Rice soup, staple of billions around the world. Enjoy, or go buy those .29 hamburgers at McDonald's.

  • Free but not freely modifiable? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    LSL has a history of not shipping the source code to packages covered under the GNU General Public License. Almost every time I have seen a GNU'ist talk about free, they are talking about the ablity to modify and redistribute derative works. LSL twists the meaning with coming out with $0.00 while still not shipping the actual source code to the Linux distribution. In fact, the "Why GPL" section of the LSL page says that the advantage to the GNU General Public License is that it allows LSL to obtain and distribute the latest "material" but doesn't go into if the "material" includes the source code.

    I wish Slashdot would promote that a "GPL CDROM" should include source code rather than promote a "GPL CDROM" just because it is $0.00 but which the packages can not be modified since the source code is missing. The again, maybe the Linux community isn't interested in widespread distribution and contribution to the source code anymore?

  • Re:Why do I need UPS? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's too bad that more e-commerce sites don't give people the ability to pay by check online or off.

    I do on my site, but there is an added expense for me (i'm just a nice guy). To enable people to pay online by check, there is an added $10 fee to the merchant services company.

    Since check orders account for less than one percent of my total volume (and I'm probably typical of small businesses), it's easy to see why most places don't want to deal what's essentially another expense not likely to pay for itself.

    Still, it's easy to get Visa debit cards, or secured credit cards. Like: http://www.fcnb.com/

    No, this is NOT a spam. After a lot of hassle with child support I had to use a secured card for a while myself...

  • Ever sell anything on ebay?

    i got bit by the handling... i checked the price of the shipping and quoted him that, then forgot that i had to buy a box and padding and take the time out of my day to go and pack it etc...

    i used to bitch about handling, but not anymore, now i bitch when people charge $10 for handling.

    henri
  • I mean, why do all these places feel the need to ship $8 with UPS when they could get away with 80 cents via USPS? It's not like I'm ordering something really expensive here, I just want a stupid CD....

    ----

  • Donate hardware to people who write drivers. It seems to be the biggest bang for the buck at the moment.

  • Re:Wow (Score:2)

    by DrSpoo ( 650 )
    Well true, I didn't have to upgrade, I was perfectly happy with RedHat 5.2 But it was a free download and I had a lazy weekend so what the hell.

    Now obviously there are some vast improvements to the system.
    o Linux 2.2.5
    o glibc 2.1 (which works great _expect_ for Staroffice 5.0)
    o KDE 1.1.1
    o Gnome 1.0
    o XFree86 3.3.3
    o Netscape 4.5
    o GIMP 1.0
    o Samba 2.0
    o misc upgrades to all other packages

    I really couldn't ask for a better suite of software than this! IMHO it was worth the time spent upgrading. I would encourge others, especiall pre 5.2 users, to upgrade to 6.0
  • Posted by stodge:

    so?

  • Posted by kenmcneil:

    FreeBSD users include Hotmail

    Not since M$ bought them! Hotmail has been slowly migrating to NT. Which means frequent headaches. I used there service for a while before the take over and rarely had problems but slowly but surely things have been going down hill. Problems include: not being able to access the site (period), frequent "We're sorry you caught use during maintence" (read: "Our system crashed") messages, a tone of messages about Netscape 4.5 not supporting cookies, frames, and the like (yes! I enabled cookies). Well anyways I gave up on them and went to Yahoo! mail.

  • Posted by hr4:

    also looks funny on redhat.com when they have three debian freshmeat entries in a row :)
  • Posted by Phantom of the Operating Syste:

    And htm extensions? This is a really weird plot. Dunno if I'd trust LSL at all :P

    -phantom.
  • That's not exactly funny, as in they messed up. It's a carefully crafted dirty marketting strategy :)
    You were gonna buy NT anyway, now you just gave you a copy of VJ++ so they can tell the world how much you loved it and had to have it. You even paid $80 for it when you could have gotten another IDE for java from somewhere else.
  • $6.99 is the price for RH6 *plus* three archive CDs (Spring '99). That's such a good deal that I already paid the $12 for it yesterday. :)
  • >I assume the poster mixed this up because of a misunderstanding of OSS and the Linux concept.

    I assume the poster forgot to use the appropriate emoticon for the humor-impaired - it's rather obvious he was being facetious or sarcastic, since all of the packages he mentioned are available in virtually every distro.

    FWIW, I do prefer Red Hat, and I ordered the Cheap Bytes CD of 6.0 recently.

  • If I could get these shipping companies to use [ the mail box ] I would be in delivery heaven!

    It is illegal for anyone to put anything in the mailbox except for offical USPS mail. It is illegal for anyone to take anything out of a mail box if they aren't the owner/tenent. It is illegal to damage a mail box. These are federal offenses.

    Oh, it is also illegal to ship anything via FedEX unless it absolutely possitively has to be there overnight. If you ship a regular letter or anything else that isn't time critical via FedEX or UPS, you are commiting a federal offense.

    I once got a box of cookies from my GF, and she taped a letter to it. She just paid the bulk rate for the box, but when I picked it up, the USPS folks made me open the letter attached to the box and since it was a "letter", I had to pay the (then) $25 for them to ship a letter.

    USPS sux.

  • Re:GNU fund raising (Score:3)

    by wayne ( 1579 ) <wayne@schlitt.net> on Sunday May 02, 1999 @02:53PM (#1907162) Homepage Journal
    But if you can't or don't contribute in that way, please donate money to the FSF instead.

    I am not sure how useful it is to donate money to free software projects, after all, the people involved aren't doing it for the money. Other things, like donating code, good detailed bug reports, donating documenations, etc. are probably much more effective.

    If you do choose to donate money, I would highly recommend the FSF. I have tried to donate money to three free software projects and only the FSF routinely cash my checks. One project never cashed any of my checks and didn't even return email inquiries about them.

    The FSF, on the other hand, has been very professional and seems to be the best organized. For example, the only "problem" that I had with them is that they sent me a new "GNU's bulletin" for each check that I sent them, which I considered a waste of money. One note to them fixed the "problem" completely.

    If you do consider trying to contibuted non-code related things to any free software project, I would suggest sending them an email first asking them what would be most useful to them. If they say "money would be good", I would suggest sending them one small check and see if they cash it. If they do, send more checks and/or a larger checks. Remember, processing checks takes effort, and it isn't the "fun stuff" of the project. If a project doesn't cash your check or want your money, don't begrudge them. They are volunteers and are putting time/effort into the organization out of the goodness of their hearts.

    Anyway, as I said in the beginning, contributions of your time/effort seem to be more effective than contributions of money.

  • Yeah, but RPS is FedEx...isn't it?

    FedEx rules.
  • Well, for some reason I have a bunch of old Boot mag cds sitting on my desk in the strata circa 1997 (November to be exact). The distro included was Debian 1.3.1.
  • Every new release I buy full price from Red Hat and/or Caldera. Then I buy a few from cheap bytes to give away. Gotta give these people credit for all the work they have done. If you have the money, support the cause.
  • $80 is a SMALL price to pay when you realize all the advanced features that are in this release of the new RedHat operating system! Things like SMP, RedHat 2.2 kernel, GNOME *1.0*, kde 1.1, APACHE... the world's best web server! Where else can you find all these features packed into one OS? ONLY with Red Hat! Other free Unixes like GNU/Linux can only HOPE to match these amazing features that Red Hat has to offer.

    That posting was kind of weird: Makes some good points based on facts (e.g. the Apache reference), yet mixes up some other important facts.

    1st. You don't pay $80 for the actual OS, which is NOT "the RedHat OS", it's a Linux distribution. If you pay for the retail package, you get a manual, customer support, and other goodies. You don't pay for Linux itself, it doesn't belong to RedHat, always remember that.

    2nd. RedHat 2.2 Kernel? There's no such thing! It's the Linux kernel. Even if the distribution is called RedHat Linux, it doesn't mean "RedHat's Linux" but "RedHat's distribution of Linux". Keep that in mind.

    3rd. Here's the worst misconception: GNU/Linux is presented as a competing product. Repeat: There's no RedHat OS, actually, RedHat Linux is GNU/Linux as well. And that's why you can download it for free with source code included: That's part of the GNU GPL License. RedHat isn't being nice because of that, they have to offer it for free like that, otherwise they couldn't offer it at all. The fact that they write and donate their own enhancements and code under the GPL, that's the nice thing, very nice indeed. It also means that their "amazing features" can be used by any other distribution.

    I assume the poster mixed this up because of a misunderstanding of OSS and the Linux concept. It can't be compared to commercial proprietary software. It's a totally new thing for most of us, an exciting evolution of software, so we must learn that new concept to fully understand the free software phenomenon.

    PS: I'm a happy user of both RedHat Linux 5.2 & Debian GNU/Linux :-)
  • I thought about just pulling down an ISO image (lot's of people on the starbuck mailing list had them available) but it's only a tiny bit harder and a whole lot better to do it yourself. I added my own directory with misc stuff that I want/need that isn't included w/ the stock distro.

    There's really nothing to it. There is a detailed RedHat CD HOW-TO at the LDP that tells you everthing you need to know.

  • They get you with the 0.00 deal. Seeing 0.00 as a price gets you excited and you feel that you must have it, because it's free. But $8.79 for a single cd seems a bit steep, compared to LinuxCentral or Cheapbytes, where I believe you get 2+ and it's cheaper. Nice deal, but not quite there yet. Say 5 bucks or so for shipping, and then we'll talk. :)
    --
    Scott Miga
  • UPS Ground runs: $9.11
    USPS Priority runs: $7.79

    Those appear to be the cheapest.
  • Not a bad price. Considering that the official is $76.95 at LSL. Geeze...and here I was gonna buy the official RedHat, but I don't have that kind of money. Oh well, good thing I'm on a college ethernet. :-)

    Does it seem to anyone else that RH is thinking they can charge more because linux is more respectable now? $76.95 seems really high. I purchased RH 5.0 official for $21 or something like that. Just a thought.
  • I used to work at RPS in the Kansas City hub. I did the conveyor for the West coast trucks. On a eight hour shift, there were between 20,000 to 40,000 boxes about an average of 25 pounds I had to pick, sort, an load. Let me tell you, that was fun. No, really! I would get in trouble if there were more than 20 misrouted boxes. Those bar codes tell all.

    We were very careful to properly route the bags full of little prerouted letters on to the right truck, since each piece inside counted.

    Nowadays, I get to play with 480 volts up to 13,500 volts and computer controls in a manufacturing environment. The damn machines get to have all the fun. I used to gain weight in the upper body area, now it is sinking. I need a grunt job again...
  • Yeah, but RPS is FedEx...isn't it?

    I'm not sure where the Fedex hub was in Kansas City.

    No, but UPS was on the other side of the fence from us. Next to both of us was an animal by-products plant that made dog food. On the typical long shift, the awful smell from that place started to smell good and make us hungry.

    We did get one package addressed to a Hillary Rodhan Clinton one night that passed through...

    Oh, what does this have to do with Redhat 6.0 and shipping the cd's? Nothing. If your package comes up missing or opened, just imagine someone had good use of it. If it is lost, ask if it got shipped by train... I heard of several cars of rice that got railroaded around for more than a few months while being lost.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • | If you ship a regular letter or anything else
    | that isn't time critical via FedEX or UPS, you
    | are commiting a federal offense

    As far as I recall, you're right about the first class letter. However, I don't think you're right about "anything else". It's perfectly fine to send anything that isn't a letter via any shipper you choose. If you, however, include a "letter" with the package, you're supposed to pay postage on the letter.

    This is how the local shipper explained it to me, anyhow. Take with a grain of sodium chloride.
  • http://www.netcraft.com/cgi-bin/Survey/whats?host= www.lsl.com

    www.lsl.com is running Apache/1.3.4 (Unix) on FreeBSD

    Apache is also being used by Javasoft, Financial Times, W3 Consortium, and The Royal Family.
    FreeBSD users include Hotmail, Yahoo, and The Apache Project.


    Mailordercentral.com is just handling their sales and shipping it seems.
  • I don't want to sound like a whiney snot, but I can't help but think it's funny that $1.01 price difference is being discussed.. :)

    I just got done reading a news.com article about how the price of Windows is a rising percent of the OS, and then to see this discussion...

    Let's just say that the OSS world is simply cooler.

    scottwimer
  • 'tanks..

    I was downloading RH6 over the company T1, but the dang server at the local Boston mirror rpmfind.net threw a recursive set of links to me. My NT system started acting wierd when it created a PATH\var\var\var\var\var\var\var\var\var\var\var\v ar\... on me.

    Guess what happened when I told NT to delete the tree? "Cannot delete directory Gnome - directory too deep". What a crappy OS.... or maybe it's smart enough to know what I was doing?? :-D

    (I was able to delete the tree in multiple passes, by going to the bottom, working up).
  • I much prefer .ISO images. Earlier folks posted lots of .ISO links; here is one that is fast FOR ME (95k/sec).

    ftp://ftp.ens.utulsa.edu/pub/linux/redhat/RedHat 60.iso

    I tried this location last because I preferred a .gz ISO, but all the other links were too slow or WORSE were international - it's bad enough we have non-local bandwidth polluters like Yahoo Boston, the server being located god knows where, without me dragging 500 megs kicking and screaming through some small countries connection to the backbone..

    Of course, I could do an FTP install and really conserve bandwidth, but I don't have a T1 at home and I do at work.. :)

  • Silly rabbit. RedHat is a distribution that consists of Linux and the GNU environment as well as other open source software like GNOME, Apache etc. The commercial version includes commercial software that Red Hat either licenses or distributes for other software companies.
    Aside from that, the base Red Hat is equivalent to SuSe, Debian GNU/Linux, Caldera, Mandrake , TurboLinux and (yes) Slackware.

    There is no such thing as RedHat 2.2 kernel. It's the Linux kernel, though it may contain patches by RedHat that haven't made it into the general 2.2 tree.

    Now be a good rabbit, hop off and get your facts straight. Inflammatory rhetoric will not get you anywhere.
  • linux is great but i cant see running a large ecommerce setup on cgi scripts.

    Complete FUD. Linux can run mod-perl, php, etc, which are all comparably better than ASP.

    As far as software that does ecommerce, I'm not sure.
  • At first I thought he meant that his 3 dogs were there to guard his 3 and one-half Acer brand computers, and then I started wondering about that half a computer. (of course my living room is currently covered in various fractions of computers)

  • At the risk of sounding like a "Me Too!" loser, the same thing happened to me. In my case, Internet Junkbuster was clipping the cookies. (Netscape was still asking whether I wanted to accept the cookies, but IJB was keeping them from going out.)

    --Joe

    --

  • Re: ISO mirror list from Ars Technica (Score:3)

    by Latrell Sprewell ( 6906 ) on Sunday May 02, 1999 @01:25PM (#1907183)
    Here's a listing of places that you can download an ISO of the RedHat 6.0 CD, courtesy of Ars Technica [arstechnica.com].

    ftp://o su-linux.capital.ous.edu/pub/linux/redhat/iso/hedw ig.i386.iso9660.gz [ous.edu]

    ftp://pricie.ccl.kuleuven.ac.be/pub/rh 60.iso [kuleuven.ac.be]

    ftp://ftp.s ervers.cx/pub/mirrors/linux/hedwig-27apr1999.i386. iso9660.gz [servers.cx]
  • That's right, "when it comes out." Some of us have been waiting for a while for this to happen. To Jason Haas (LinuxPPC) if you reading this, I don't mind waiting! Just don't ship out a crappy R5 distro.:)

    BTW, Prime Time Freeware did a similar thing with MkLinux if you bought the MkLinux2.0(?) distro with the book. It came with a free upgrade card that eventually could be used to upgrade to the Dev3 release.
  • Really, its amazing that they make any money right now... since most of the people who use Linux are farily comforatable around a computer... Most of them are easily able to get a copy by burning it from a friend. I dont see very many people actually buying the box (at least in my circles)

  • Nope... (Score:1)

    by SEE ( 7681 )
    Its $6.99 plus $5 for $11.99 total at Cheapbytes

    Nope. It's $1.99 plus $5 for $6.99 total at Cheapbytes.
  • My order came to $0.00 also but it also says "A representative from our company will contact you with the shipping amount before charging your credit card." it may be tho cause i ordered 101 cds
  • already one up at ftp://light-brigade.mit.edu/pub/redhat-6.0/redhat- 6.0.i386.iso
  • Yes, donating code, bug reports, and documentation would be ideal. But there are people who use free software who don't have the time or knowledge to contribute in these ways, yet still appreciate the time and effort that goes into making free software and wish to contribute.

    Many Free Software projects run webservers, which cost money as far as: registering the domain name, getting the hardware for the server to run on, and getting the server a connection to the net. At least two of those are not one-time costs.

    But wayne does make some excellent points as far as how to go about donating money. I would definitely recommend checking with the person/project you wish to send money before you actually do.
  • The same thing happened to me. I went back, turned cookies on and the shipping cost appeared. If your cookies are off that might be the problem.

  • The other day I sent a letter from Florida to California.

    It took exactly 45 days.

    You'll easily spend more than $8 of your time explaining to a customer why his free CD hasn't arrived at all ever. Plus it'll cost you more than 80 cents to collect the 80 cents from him.

    If they shipped via USPS, they'd probably still have to charge at least $5 for the handling and the cost to collect the shipping fee.
  • Oh, it is also illegal to ship anything via FedEX unless it absolutely possitively has to be there overnight. If you ship a regular letter or anything else that isn't time critical via FedEX or UPS, you are commiting a federal offense.

    I'd love to see them try to enforce that one. Maybe I'll challenge it.

    I bet my employer would back me up. :-)


    (I work for FedEx.)
  • With all the annoyances of UPS deliveries, what I actually wish I could do is just walk into a store and buy a copy of RH. The official version seems to take forever to get distributed, and I haven't found anyone who just presses a bunch of copies off the ftp site and sells them.

    I mean, I'm in a big city (NYC), you would think some little computer store would press a bunch of copies and sell them for $10. Does anyone know of a place in NY that does this?

  • I just ordered Red Hat, Debian and Slackware distros, and it was $8 for the whole thing, not just for one CD. I was surprised, I thought it was $8 a CD too, but it's actually a really good deal!

  • KDE and GNOME are part of RH 6.0... you don't need LSL to add it for you.

  • Its $6.99 at Cheapbytes (with shipping) (Score:4)

    by Doodhwala ( 13342 ) on Sunday May 02, 1999 @12:29PM (#1907197) Homepage
    Guys..check out CheapBytes [cheapbytes.com] The CD is only for $6.99 including UPS. SO what it cheaper ?
  • KDE and GNOME both come with stock rh6.0.
  • LSL doesnt use NT. If you paid attention to the url of the ordering place it's not LSL. It's a third party online ordering system. They are the ones that use NT, not LSL.
  • I've ordered from LSL before and I was pleased. The shipping charges are for postal priority. You get the package in 2-3 days. LSL made me happy by replacing a defective CD-R I bought from them free of charge, I sent it back using regular postage which took about a week and only costs me the change in my pocket. Then they send it back postal priority, which is why it costs 8 bucks.
  • The only one of those sites I access with some regularity is Compaq. Its one of the quirkiest, most trouble prones sites I know. FTPing update packs from there is about as hit and miss as it gets.
  • So glibc 2.1 and kernel 2.2 isn't a major upgrade? I would say that it is. Might not be all THAT much difference from a user point of view I guess. Also 6.0 includes KDE which is nice.

    / Haven't upgraded yet.
  • Seriously.

    I went to order the CD, and figured that since I didn't need it right away, priority mail, USA only (the last option on their shipping list) would be good enough for me.

    Imagine my surprise when shipping proved to be $0.00.

    I even saved the page to a file in my home directory as proof.

    This is the page that says, "This is how much you will be charged, please enter your credit card number". If they charge more than what they say they will to your card, they'll get in rather serious trouble, don't you think?

    I don't know if it's a mistake, or if they usually offer free shipping via the Postal Service (since it is cheaper/slower than other shipping methods), but that's what I got...and so help me if they charge me a penny more I'm really going to raise hell.

    (Have you ever had to enter your credit card number so that you can be charged $0.00 to your account? That's a weird experience, but now I can honestly say I've done it. :)

  • Hey, I paid my civic virtue by downloading and sitting through annoying IBM banner ads, getting spam from AOL, and wasting my time having to change the default home pages on all my browsers back after they've all been changed to NetCenter by Netscape. All of these companies have donated heavily to RedHat, so they can consider my civic duty paid many times over by proxy.

    If they ever do make it difficult to obtain a RedHat version for free, I'll say, "Hello, Debian!" and kindly tell RedHat to take their request for "civic virtue" and stick it where the sun doesn't shine.

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • For those wondering about shipping, prices, I ordered Debian 2.0.2 a while ago from lsl.com. I believe the cd's themselves (3 of them) cost $2, but there was like $3 shipping, and $4 handling. I've never really understood the handling thing, but that's where they make their money. I guess it's for the service of mailing it or something.
  • There is at least one good reason to ship with UPS or some other *reliable* shipping company. UPS, et al, provides a tracking number that lets you see where the package went. They actually account for your package. USPS does not.

    Also, the $8 (actually, it's $9.37) covers quite a bit more than shipping. UPS for a CD is only three or four bucks. So that "free" CD is actually somewhat more expensive.

    Remember that great economics acronym: TANSTAAFL.

    =h=

  • Re:Not Bad (Score:3)

    by HardCase ( 14757 ) on Sunday May 02, 1999 @01:43PM (#1907207)
    $76.95 seems high? Really? For an operating system that competes against Windows NT Server? I don't suppose that you've priced that package lately. Oh, and check out the license...how many computers can you install that copy of NT on?

    I bought RedHat 5.1 for $50. Ditto for 5.2. Yeah, it's a 50% increase in price, but I think that I'm still getting good value for my money.

    $76.95 is the MOST that you'll pay for Red Hat. Or you can buy it for a couple of bucks from CheapBytes. Or you can download it for nothin' from that high speed ethernet connection at school.

    Why do you suppose that RedHat charges what they do? Because it's not a slap-dash mix of whatever Linux-related stuff is out there. They do compatibility testing and fix what doesn't work. They paid the programmers to develop Gnome. And they pay a ton of money to have a call center to answer installation questions.

    The thing that I find so remarkable is that they've added tremendous value to the product, yet you or I can download it for nothing on the Internet. With the source code. Nobody else does that.

    And for what it's worth, pop over to your local computer store or out onto the 'net and see what Windows 98 full version sells for. Then decide who's charging too much money. As a hint...it ain't Red Hat!
  • Well, my personal view is that distributors should ship what people want to buy. I sell Debian CDs (no, I'm not going to advertise prices) and let they buyer choose what they want... want source, you get it; don't want it, you don't get it (and save around $5.25). I sell slightly more binary+source sets than binary-only. (With the m68k Red Hat, it's not an issue since the source and binary fit on one disc.)

    I also think source CDs are often obsoleted so quickly that sometimes they're not worth having around, unless the upstream author provides diffs (rare--the kernel being one of the exceptions). Particularly with a distro you're almost always better off downloading the source for the packages you want to hack on. I think most free software advocates (particularly our friends at the socialistic end like RMS, if they were logically consistent) would prefer that we avoid waste (giving people what they don't want, and using natural resources to produce CDs that half our customers don't want to use) than universally distributing source code.

    And no, I'm not just saying this because I'm tired of duplicating source CD-Rs for people ;-)
  • I just recently upgraded to Red Hat 6.0 on two of my servers here at home, the other runs SuSE 6.0. Anyhow, the redhat upgrade fixed a problem I was having using IP-aliasing. They seem to have finally gotten the initial kernel config right, all I needed to do was choose the modules I needed, and away I went. They are using some special version of 2.2.5. They call it 2.2.5-15. Probably some internal bug fixes that are already in 2.2.6 and on. Anyhow, all works well, the upgrade went exceptionally smooth. everything still works under glibc 2.1! I was a bit reluctant to upgrade, but so far so good. Amazingly, nothing got clobbered in the upgrade. I especially liked the choice of shadowed passwords in the install. You no longer have to hunt this option down. Anyhow, good work Red Hat, though $80 is a bit too rich for my blood, this time I opted for a download(thank the machine for cable modems).
  • That there was a one CD per costomer limit for
    the free CD offer. Woops...

    And I quote:
    "Limit 1 free copy per customer.
    Shipping and handling charges apply."


  • I think we broke the server... go the slashdot effect!... unfortunately I can't actually get my basketful of goodies on it's merry way to me because the 'check out' and 'buy now' links seem to be very very.... quiet.

  • Actually I went to check out this free RH deal. It said "shipping: $7.79". That was the only charge, there was no mention of any handling charges.

    I'm wondering if this could be considered fraud at all. It sure as hell doesn't cost that much to ship USPS.
  • They had USPS when I checked it. They claimed it was $7.79 for shipping (all it said was Shipping, no mention of Handling which is where people normally screw you)
  • Some projects specifically could use money though. Some groups develop hardware drivers and applications and could use funds to purchase them. These groups also sometimes need money to get access to specifications and such. Also, some groups could use money for certification testing.
  • Try the one made by Linux Country:
    http://www.linuxcountry.com/article.php3?sid=990 429/195126

    or just go to ftp.linuxlab.org/pub

    eli
  • It was Caldera OpenLinux - and they Boot got quite a few letters asking them what they were supposed to do after they got a command prompt :)

    I became a Linux convert the day that NT crashed five times on me.
  • There are enough other magazines out there putting free demos of games and the like with their paper product, why doesn't a magazine like Linux Journal [linuxjournal.com] do the same?

    I buy CMJ New Music [cmj.com] every month just for the included mix CD; I'd do the same for something like Linux Journal.

    Thoughts?
  • You get the downloadable version of WP with the LSL CD. You can get that for free from Corel. And Cheapbytes is shipping it tomorrow! The LSL version is coming May 7th, which is Friday. And most importantly, it's cheaper from Cheapbytes ($1.99 + $5.00 S/H) than from the LSL.

    Mike
    --

  • the person who made you pay extra for the letter is an anal asshole. I am a mailcarrier, and we let many "sins" pass. If it is 2 or 3 cents postage due, and we know that the person is dirt poor, screw it, we take it out of our own pocket. If some little ol lady sends out a letter and she forgot to put a stamp on it, and it is on the same route, no biggie. Same on tax day, if it seems that the guy didn't put enough postage on it, I carry stamps on that day to keep my customers from having to pay late fees.

    Sorry that you had a hard time.
  • That's true, for FSF volunteers, who write free software as a hobby.

    Here's a section from the ''GNU Manifesto'' [gnu.org] by Richard M. Stallman:

    How You Can Contribute

    I am asking computer manufacturers for donations of machines and money. I'm asking individuals for donations of programs and work.

    (...)

    If I get donations of money, I may be able to hire a few people full or part time. The salary won't be high by programmers' standards, but I'm looking for people for whom building community spirit is as important as making money. I view this as a way of enabling dedicated people to devote their full energies to working on GNU by sparing them the need to make a living in another way.
    At RedHat Software, Inc. there are (according to my latest information from #gimp :) currently 6 people at the RedHat Advanced Developments Lab, 6 people working on the distribution, two on site kernels hackers, and 4 off site kernel hackers, who are paid full-time for free software developments.

  • GNU fund raising (Score:5)

    by ole ( 19909 ) on Sunday May 02, 1999 @12:50PM (#1907222) Homepage
    People who receive a gratis CD with free software from a developer could send him the money saved, to encourage him to write more free software or manuals.

    Most programmers and technical writers can contribute by writing software and documentation for GNU. That is the most direct way to contribute to the GNU Project. But if you can't or don't contribute in that way, please donate money to the FSF instead.

    To donate to the FSF, simply mail a check to:

    Free Software Foundation
    59 Temple Place - Suite 330
    Boston, MA 02111
    USA
  • Er, PCPLUS, an excellent magazine from the UK, which I subscribe to http://www.pcplus.co.uk runs linux sections and includes all kinds of Linux stuff on one of their 3 CDs a month - last month they ran a RedHat 5.2 CD + their usual good quality Linux info, reources, applications, etc...

    Check it out - Really cool.

    periscope
  • I used it as an exscuse to finally get Running Linux, and save with shipping. Beats both amazon.com and local bookstore with state tax.
    Plus redhat 6.0 yippee

  • Re:Wow (Score:1)

    by Misha ( 21355 )
    Actually, you should see just what they did to the install program. I saw some of the packages that were updated, and too was not very enthusiastic about getting another 15megs of kde i could have downloaded (hypothetically of course, i run debian 2.1 and quite happy with apt -- thank you).

    but two of my friends are switching to linux or at least trying it out for the first time, and they were impressed by the ease with which the install went. Even the sound worked right away (on one of them at least), but X was the real deal. RH even added a tcl message "are you seeing this correctly, click yes." and xdm prompt is more and more like something you could just sit down in front of and login to. Although, Xconfigurator, which I think is the selling point of redhat easy install, does not probe the cards and the monitor correctly yet, one can still easily specify the video ram info and the refresh rates if any.

    really awfully close to a painless newbie install. a painless install being clicking yes or hitting enter about 15 times before you get a fresh and operational machine.
  • I also believe that the $76.95 version comes with SSL (RSA, which is copywrited commercial software. That the downloaded version or the cheap cd's don't come with.. though there always is wa--z
  • Not a problem with UPS. Why do I need a credit card. Why is there no method for paying cash? Why can't I even pay in advance? If you don't have, or wish to use a credit card you are effectively shut out of e-commerce.
  • I notice a lot of symbolic links in the distro directories, and was wondering if there's a good method to raping it all, maintaining the symbolic links, and packing it for a CD burn.

    mirror scripts.

    In the case of RedHat, there's a mirror perl script that's used to make a local copy from either the distribution server (assuming you can stand the lack of speed) or one of the mirrors. It's not too hard to set up, and if memory serves, there's a decent HOWTO about burning a bootable CD from your mirror files.

    There are ISO images out there, but all of them seem to be on slow servers, alas. Nobody's managed to get an ISO up on a speedy server like wcarchive.

    Debian alludes to being able to do much the same thing, but it was easier for me to just snare the ISO.

    I hear tell that Mandrake also distributes official ISO images.

    Histoically, Caldera has done the same thing, but so far I haven't come across the actual files for the most recent release (but then, I'm not looking too hard).

    No sign of ISOs for SuSE or Stampede.

    I wouldn't know squat about TurboLinux because... well, does anyone even use TL?

    It's also noteworthy that one almost never finds ISO images of the various BSDs. Seems like the BSD folks are image-averse, preferring (like Debian) to guide folks towards mirroring and (unlike Debian) not distributing an ISO at all. This is vaguely understandable given the size of the thing.
  • RTFM; RedHat has a several editions of RedHat 6.0 for sale.
    • $39.95, "Core" edition for hackers and slashdotters that is just 2 CDs and the installation guide.
    • $79.95, "Official" edition for everybody else with the extra CD, the floppy (whee!), and the Getting Started guide.
    • $99.95, "Extra" edition, has several extra CDs
    IMO RedHat is just offering some more choices. It seems logical to me, charge more for getting more. But they are still keeping the $40 option, which is fine for me.
  • I payed my dues in the RedHat game.. I bought 4.2 and 5.0, and vowed never to buy them again. Why? Because i can.

  • Boot magazine CD had linux on it quite a while back. I'm not sure what distro or version it was, but I do recall this, as it made quite an impression (before I ever even knew what linux was)
  • Hi,

    It might be for tax reasons. In Australia we aren't (yet) taxed on services so if the product is free and the service is what you pay for then the earnings are tax free. I'm not an accountant or anything but that is my understanding of it.

    PS: I've ordered from LSL Australia and found them great. Much cheaper, faster and more accomendating than InfoMagic.
  • And at $1.99 for the CD and $5.00 S&H you can still get it cheaper at CHEAPBYTES.COM.
  • Korean spicy cabbage
  • I just checked this out, and it appears that you can get it shipped via USPS. According to their rate calculators, it would cost $7.79 to my zip code of 53523 with USPS as opposed to $8.79 with UPS. How about that?
  • Like a lot of Linux users, I'm just interested in checking out the other distros. On the other hand, the distros don't mean a whole lot--right now my machine is probably more up-to-date then Redhat 6.0 is =)

    Also, I'm the local source of Linux propoganda at work. Hence, I'd like to see how the other distros hold up to Redhat in terms of producing a usable system quickly, and completely. I'm getting closer every day to having production linux machines in use!
  • My last (and only, period) experience with LSL was rather disapointing. I picked up a 3-CD set of RH 5.2 (the binary distro, all the contribs, and their 'Catalyst', what they advertised as demo and trial versions of commercial software).

    While the binary distro CD was fine, the other two were next to worthless. The contribs CD obviously had not been reviewed at all. Both KDE and Gnome had mixed RPMS for different versions--making them useless. The 'Catalyst' had a very small handful of trial versions, but was almost entirely HTML files with broken links, which seemed to have just been saved off different vendors web sites.

    Needless to say, I'll not be throwing away any more money with LSL. Next paycheck, I'm trying out Cheapbytes (their mondo pack looks good =)

    Vrallis
  • http://www.linux-support.net/cdoffer.shtml
    The cost for either CD is $12.95 per CD plus $3.55 shipping (USPS Priority Mail, Delivery Confirmed) per order.
  • Find a first class ecommerce package for linux and then talk. Linux doesn't have one now. Any way, people have to quit this "No MS" stuff. Use the best technology availabe to solve a problem. If MS has that Technology, fine. Very much like KDE used Qt. Would you throw away all the inventions of Nazi Germany? Would you vacate your apartment because your landlord is convicted of murder? Get real people.
  • Red Hat is selling two "official" versions, though. The more basic version sells for $39.95, and is currently on sale. The one you're talking about includes more software and won't be on sale until May 10.

    Still, even $77 isn't bad for an operating system when it comes with all sorts of useful software (GPL'd and otherwise) and support from the company. Even the academic version of Windows NT costs over $100, and includes fewer bundled programs.

    And last of all, yes, college Ethernets do rule. :)
  • I noticed one key point, however minor, that might make the difference between LSL's version and the stock RH 6.0 offered by CheapBytes, LinuxMall, and even Red Hat themselves. They include the 2.2.7 kernel, a hair up from the bundled kernel. Additionally, they include a trial of some back-up software and KDE and GNOME.

    I'd be very interested to hear from people whether this minor change makes a big difference, whether for good or for bad. RPM's can be tied to specific kernels and/or distributions, and Red Hat's install procedure works almost entirely with RPM, if memory serves correctly.

    Lastly, I wonder how intuitive KDE and GNOME might be. I've seen mixed reaction to LSL's handling of it in prior distributions.

    Personally, I'm sticking with CheapBytes... although I could download it over my cable modem (provided I had enough free HD space), they gave me excellent service when I bought from them last.
  • For over a year now, my university book store has had a deal where if you buy any microsoft development tool, you get a free copy of NT Workstation 4.0. For $80 CDN you can get Visual J++ with NT. Sitting on the shelf beside this is an NT 4.0 WS box for over $100. Duh.

    Not that I endorse buying microsoft operating systems, I just find that kindof funny.
  • Cheapbytes.com has the 6.0 cd's for $2, $7 with the archive CDs. Shipping is more in the realm of believability, around $5.
  • Actually, usps priority takes 2-3 days, usually.
  • Well, in France, a magazine called Dream (subtitled the alternative computing magazine) routinely gives out Linux distributions (last month Redhat 5.2 Alpha + gnome 1.0, the previous month Redhat 5.2 Intel + kde 1.1) plus it has huge sections about Linux, such as News, Programming (X, GTK, Perl, C++, etc..) and so on. And the rest of the magazine ? Well, it talks about BeOS, RiscOS, AmigaOS, ... Really this is the kind of magazine that needs and deserves support !

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