On Monday 20 January 2003 16:46, Ricardo Rodriguez wrote:
Isnt linux freely available anymore?
Yes.
I have been away from linux for at least a year and now that I want to get it back I dont find that many choices to download it as before.
I dont think that install it from an FTP server is a choice for me because:
I am installing it just in a small partition from my hdd which is also W2K. My only internet access is dial up.
So how did you afford W2K? SuSE's a good deal cheaper, no?
I will like to know which version can I just download, burn into a cd and install it from there? Where do I find it?
If your only internet access is dialup, how are you using less bandwidth and phone time to download isos than you are to do the SuSE ftp install?
SuSE is my first choice, but I also looked at red hat site and it doesnt seem to be as easy as before to download it with out paying.
Is it because it has become so popular that linux distributors dont let you have it for free anymore? Are they getting ready to compete in a capitalist world with M$?
It's because the people who assemble Linux distributions, at considerable expenditure in time and effort, have to eat, pay rent and clothe their children. This is really very easy to understand - they can't go into shops and say 'I work on free software, can I fill my trolley for free?' Trying to send them on some kind of guilt trip by implying that they've somehow 'sold out' is deeply unfair and doesn't help anyone. You're paying to have a polished, well-organised and integrated distro delivered to you on nice CDs with useful docs. You're not paying for the Linux kernel, GNU binutils, etc. You can download all of those absolutely gratis. It'll just be up to you to make them work.
I will appreciate your comments or suggestion about how and where to get free linux if possible SuSE, if not, red hat.
You have several options, including: 1) The SuSE ftp install. 2) Get an old Sun box or similar, for which free isos are available from SuSE - only i386 arch has the limitation about downloading isos. Sun hardware is nice, and still quite powerful but ageing machines are to be had cheaply. 3) Get Debian CDs. Debian is a well-respected distro, and their stuff is very much free beer as well as free country. You can get the CDs cheaper than you can download them over dialup. http://www.debian.org 4) Ditto with FreeBSD (http://www.freebsd.org), OpenBSD (http://www.openbsd.org), NetBSD (http://www.netbsd.org). Not Linux, but you'll love it. At least one of these has an easy ftp install. 5) Using whatever Linux distro you still have around, go to http://www.linuxfromscratch.org and follow their install routines. This way, you can use a basic 'host' Linux system to build your own distro; their instructions are really, really well done, even I managed to get a working system up, including KDE3, without breaking too much of a sweat. However, I won't be stopping buying SuSE cds because of the enormous added value they give me. HTH Best Fergus
Thnx.
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-- Fergus Wilde Chetham's Library Long Millgate Manchester M3 1SB Tel: +44 161 834 7961 Fax: +44 161 839 5797 http://www.chethams.org.uk