"Steve S." wrote in message
> news:11de8$44ce2ec8$ce946c3b$3590@DIALUPUSA.NET...
> So I've got a urge to buy Debian. I'm attracted to dpkg
> (apt, etc.) and the possibility of having an easy way
> to keep my computer up-to-date, and a distro that does
> the same. I think that Debian will get me closer to that
> state than the other distros, including Ubuntu.
>
> So the next question is, where do I buy the CDs?



Do you not have access to a fast Internet connection?
and a cdr or dvdr burner?

Get the cd's from a friend or user group in your area.
Don't buy them. Just make sure whoever makes them
does validate them before you use them. That way if
you run into problems, it won't be the cd/dvd's.

You can get the Internet install cd if your connection has
sufficient speed.

Keeping Ubuntu updated is a snap. It does it automatically,
(like auto update in XP).

Since you didn't say what kind of hardware you plan to run
there are lots of possibilities. You also didn't say if you are
client oriented or server oriented.

On the server side I would suggest keeping up with RH, Suse,
Ubuntu and Debian. For the client side I would keep up with
Ubuntu and Debian if you want. For the moment RH has the
biggest chunk of the server market but that mey change with
the new releases of Ubuntu.

later,
charles......

Steve S. wrote:
> So I've got a urge to buy Debian. I'm attracted to dpkg
> (apt, etc.) and the possibility of having an easy way
> to keep my computer up-to-date, and a distro that does
> the same. I think that Debian will get me closer to that
> state than the other distros, including Ubuntu.
>
> So the next question is, where do I buy the CDs?

It might be the wrong question. Have you noticed that Linux
CD-publishing is a much smaller business than it used to be? There are
reasons for that:

o Everyone now has access to cheap, reliable CD burners and media.
Most people have at least 56kbps modem access to the Internet,
which in the USA and Canada (at least) is cheap and reliable.

o Everyone now knows how to verify that you did a good download
(checking the MD5 or SHA1 hash value) and a good burn (checking
cdrecord output).

o People learned the hard way that the CDs you get from mail order CD
vendors often turn out to be either outdated or prerelease versions.
Plus, they take a long time to reach you, and you have to pay the media
cost, vendor markup, and shipping.

A full CD is about 701MB, and you need only disk1 to do a reasonable
Debian install. Admittedly, that's a long download on modem dial-up --
but maybe you can leave the dial-up session running? Or maybe you have
broadband access?

Download the .iso file's accompanying md5sum file, and (if on a Linux
or other *ix box) check like this: "md5sum -c md5sumfilename"

Experienced Debianistas tend (or at least, those with reliable and
fairly decent Internet access) tend to use the small "netinst" images,
instead. These weigh in at only around 100MB, and include only the
essential core required to run the installer. Why? Well, software on a
distro CD image is likely to be slightly outdated and soon be replaced
by downloaded update packages anyway, so why not skip the overstuffed
CD contents and fetch current packages directly from the online
package mirrors, instead?

I haven't used a CD vendor in quite a few years, personally, and think
of them as a middle-90s sort of thing.

--
Cheers, Your eyes are weary from staring at the CRT. You feel
Rick Moen sleepy. Notice how restful it is to watch the cursor
rick@linuxmafia.com blink. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are
yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.

On Thursday 03 August 2006 4:48, ***** charles
wrote:
> "Steve S." wrote in
> message
>> news:11de8$44ce2ec8$ce946c3b$3590@DIALUPUSA.NET...
>> So I've got a urge to buy Debian. I'm attracted to dpkg
>> (apt, etc.) and the possibility of having an easy way
>> to keep my computer up-to-date, and a distro that does
>> the same. I think that Debian will get me closer to that
>> state than the other distros, including Ubuntu.
>>
>> So the next question is, where do I buy the CDs?
>
>
> Do you not have access to a fast Internet connection?
> and a cdr or dvdr burner?
>
> Get the cd's from a friend or user group in your area.
> Don't buy them.

I've downloaded a Linux distro before through my 56k
modem and it took two weeks (maybe 500 MB), including
disconnects. My local LUG (CINLUG) likes Ubuntu, and I
don't like Ubuntu. I've got a CD burner and no decent
way to label them, just a sharpie. And, BTW, I'm not
shopping for a way to label them either. Therefore I will
be buying some nice thermally labeled, commercially burned,
USPS delivered CD-ROMs (and not DVDs).


> Just make sure whoever makes them
> does validate them before you use them. That way if
> you run into problems, it won't be the cd/dvd's.
>

Yes, I'm discovering that. But basically the resellers
have got to watch their costs in order to keep operating
and so their QA habits tend toward testing a burnt
disk every once-in-a-while, or perhaps using a more
statistically significant rate than that. I'm asking them
for who manufactures their discs, and they just give me
a vague "We use quality manufacturers" sort of answers,
so far.

And before you write, know that I have already read
about the cyanine, phthalocyanine, and metalized azo
dyes and read about their colors, and read about their
patent owners, and read that the shorter data-life that
one of them was addressed by adding some preservative,
and read about the fact that the dye based CDs haven't
been around long enough to actually know, with certainty,
that they would hold data for 10 or 100 years, and so
manufactures claims (as always) should be taken with
skepticism, especially when they make bold absolute claims
such as "This CD WILL..." rather than a reasonable "The
CD probably will...".

Read the cdrfaq or other google results if you want to
learn about those topics: http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq07.html


> You can get the Internet install cd if your connection has
> sufficient speed.
>
> Keeping Ubuntu updated is a snap. It does it
> automatically, (like auto update in XP).
>

What's XP?

Here is one of the top misunderstandings in this thread.
"Keeping Ubuntu updated is a snap." Updated with what?
Updated corresponding to what? Matching who's Linux?
Who's, Ubuntu's Linux? Updating Ubuntu to match the latest
Ubuntu is a snap? (And I know that getting Ubuntu discs
is a snap too.) But the misunderstanding here is that I
don't want to be updated with Ubuntu's Linux nor anyone's
else's distribution. Instead I want to be updated with
the original software author's code, and not the distro's
version of it. And it is Debian that gives me the best
chance of being up-to-date with the software author, due to
the near ubiquity of their .deb file (as opposed to the RPM
..spec file's lack of ubiquity after years of popularity).
So, that decision has already been made.

All Ubuntus, Red Hats, SCOs (a.k.a. "Linux is a copy
of our Unix, IBM! Now show is the proof of that IBM!)
, Mandrivas, Suses, etc. are off my list. My list of
distros is effectively closed. Although, Puppy (because
it's small and a live CD), Progeny (because they seem to
have my concern about Linux), and perhaps Slackware's
work with managing tar.gzs might catch my attention.
Which leads to the second misunderstanding of this thread.
I have seen the many "Which to buy?" threads on Google
groups search and don't want another one of them, but
instead want a "Where to buy?" thread which the Linus
Usenet groups have very little of.

So, please to send this thread your good and bad
experiences with resellers.


> Since you didn't say what kind of hardware you plan to run
> there are lots of possibilities. You also didn't say if
> you are client oriented or server oriented.
>
>
---snip---8x---snip---8x---snip---8x---snip---8x---snip---8x---
> later,
> charles......
>

I didn't say that I run a PII-350 MHz, 1999, home PC, for
email, amateur flyer design, amateur web design because
those are criteria in choosing a distro and that choice
has been made already. So the next question is: Where
to buy? Thank you Charles for trying to be so helpful,
and upholding the fine and proud reputation that the Linux
community has of helping n00bies, with intelligent, sage,
and accurate advice. But instead of that if you have any
good/bad personal experiences then please send them into
this thread.


On Thursday 03 August 2006 5:45, Rick Moen
wrote:
> Steve S. wrote:
>>
>> So the next question is, where do I buy the CDs?
>
> It might be the wrong question.

But it isn't the wrong question, it is precisely correct.
That is the third big misunderstanding of this thread,
that the newbie sounding question that I posted means
that I am a noowbie. So my explanation of how I choose
Debian didn't help to dispel all of your expectations that
anyone asking a question here must be a noooooobie. But I
have run Linux for years and have the normal love/hate
relationship with Tux the mascot penguin (unlike the
abnormal sick and twisted hate/hate relationship that I
had with Windows) and so I am not a newooobie, but am
an electrical engineer with a bit of a hacker impulse
who wants to be closer to the bleeding edge than what
Mandriva and the like are rumored to protect us from.
So lets try to move past the kind-hearted and generous
advice-to-the-gnubie and get personal.

Get personal by sending, to here, your personal good and
bad experiences with Linux resellers who you've bought
burned CDs from.


> Have you noticed that Linux
> CD-publishing is a much smaller business than it used to
> be? There are reasons for that:
>
> o Everyone now has access to cheap, reliable CD burners
> and media.
> Most people have at least 56kbps modem access to the
> Internet, which in the USA and Canada (at least) is
> cheap and reliable.
>
> o Everyone now knows how to verify that you did a good
> download
> (checking the MD5 or SHA1 hash value) and a good burn
> (checking cdrecord output).
>
> o People learned the hard way that the CDs you get from
> mail order CD
> vendors often turn out to be either outdated or
> prerelease versions. Plus, they take a long time to
> reach you, and you have to pay the media cost, vendor
> markup, and shipping.
>

Do you know that current data, and history? I've never
heard most of that, before.

On that last point, I realize how out-dated my previous
distros' (Red Hat 5.1, Caldera eDesktop 2.4, Caldera eD
3.1, Ubuntu 5.10) packages have been with the software
authors, which is exactly what I'm trying to avoid
by avoiding any of the secondary and tertiary distros.
And I think that the resellers that I'm looking at do have
a real dedication to the latest distro version, and that
they discount their over stock of obsoleted versions.
Debian 3.1r2 is recent enough for me, and Debian 4.0
doesn't come out until Dec. 2006 (where 8,000 packages are
supposed to be updated) and I won't wait that long to buy.

I'm looking at these next resellers, and judging
them based on the criteria of: do they have a postal
address?, price, labeling technology (ink-jet, silkscreen,
thermal, adhesive, etc.), shipping charge, delivery time,
third-party payment verification (Paypal, etc.), customer
privacy respected and secured, do they offer education on
their site?, and reputation...

http://www.LinuxOnline.biz
http://www.osdisc.com
http://www.easylinuxcds.com
http://linuxcdrs.com
http://www.frozentech.com
http://linuxcentral.com
http://www.cheapbytes.com

(cheapbytes tells me that, "We have been in business
over 10 years now and quite literally have served tens of
thousands of customers." I wonder if that's true?)


> A full CD is about 701MB, and you need only disk1 to do a
> reasonable
> Debian install.

Sure, thanx, I know. But the ~$25 price for 24 Debian
CDs is an attractive deal for me and my 56K phone modem.
My ISP has been kicking me offline lately, probably due
to my connection times lasting 4-5 hours.


> Experienced Debianistas tend... tend to use
> the small "netinst" images,...
>
> ... software on a distro CD image is likely to be slightly
> outdated and soon be replaced by downloaded update
> packages anyway,

That could be attractive, I've heard of Debian's net
install but haven't done it before. Maybe I'll try,
and make a larger donation to Debian. But I do want
some CDs to work from when looking for packages.


>
> I haven't used a CD vendor in quite a few years,
> personally, and think of them as a middle-90s sort of
> thing.
>

Maybe me and this thread are just out-dated.

But if not, then post your good and bad personal
experiences of buying Linux CDs, answering the "Where to
buy" question, everyone.

- steve s.

On 08/04/2006 10:16 PM, Steve S. wrote:
> [...]
> So, please to send this thread your good and bad
> experiences with resellers.
> [...]


http://www.edmunds-enterprises.com/ is good.

Thanks to all.

I went blindly ahead after reading Dave Mann's posting and had no
problem at all. All is well.

Old guy, I'm going to take your advice about the newsgroup.

Again, thanks all.

On Mon, 31 Jul 2006 12:24:44 -0400, Steve S.
wrote:

>So I've got a urge to buy Debian. I'm attracted to dpkg
>(apt, etc.) and the possibility of having an easy way
>to keep my computer up-to-date, and a distro that does
>the same. I think that Debian will get me closer to that
>state than the other distros, including Ubuntu.
>
>So the next question is, where do I buy the CDs?
>
>Debian lists lots of resellers, and I hardly know anything
>about most of them. Except that I know a cousin of mine
>used LinuxCentral and was satisfied; also I searched for
>some comments about various resellers on various web forums
>and have seen some satisfied and unsatisfied comments, and
>I've seen a complaint that EasyLinuxCDs has slow delivery
>times because they're in Canada.
>
>http://www.debian.org/CD/vendors/#us
>
>Has anyone had any good or bad experiences with any
>of these resellers? I'd like a reseller in the US, who
>stands behind the CDs that they sell (defects with the CD,
>not defects with the software), and price is a factor,
>of course.

< snip >

> So, please to send this thread your good and bad
> experiences with resellers.

If you had said upfront that you were experienced
my answer would have been different. All questions
are assumed to come from beginners unless otherwise
stated.

My experience with resellers was a long time ago and
I suspect this is similar to others who are "experienced".
Most of us now have fast Internet connections or
friends with fast connections or access to user groups
in our local geographical area and we also have burners
(especially now that they are under $30). I dumped my
dialup account just at the end of last year with a 3Mbs
DSL line. Downloading iso's only takes about 40 min.

By the way, I like Ubuntu and have installed it on
"a lot" of computers. I have also used it to convert a
lot of Windows people both advanced and beginners.
None have gone back. Ubuntu usually works best on
solid hardware.

So back to answering your original question. I don't
know since I have done no purchasing of cd's for over
6 or 7 years. The problem you are facing is that most/
all of the people who provide answers in a newsgroup
like this are in a similar boat. I did purchase a big
"pack" of cd's from a vendor that is no longer in business.
But I had no troubles.

Most of the other Linux guru's whom I know use either
Red Hat, Suse, or Debian. If they need the support it is
RH or Suse. If they don't it is Debian. I find Debian to
be more flexible and stable where I can implement it in
a wider variety of environments/solutions.

later,
charles.....