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Am I the only one tired of people complaining about the price of Linux Distributions?

If you don't want to pay $80 to use RedHat then
don't complain about it. You can still buy the $35 version of RedHat, or if you don't want to spend that much you can pay $2 and get it from CheapBytes.

I really don't think price should be a determinative factor in your decision to buy, unless you are interested in where your money is going. Then I think it actually pays to look at whether you want to support the good people at debian or redhat.

As for suse, I have to argue with the guy who said that they give back to the community because they give a copy of their cd to all developers whose work they publish. That's not giving back to the community. RH paying Alan Cox to code is giving back. Debian doing what they do (I am stumped right now) is giving back. Suse bragging about their profits is not giving back as much as they could be.

Also, try looking CheapBytes.

You aren't part of our community. Go away.

Problem solved

Hey, go to
www.cheapbytes.com and you can donate money by credit card to all sorts of causes, such as RMS and Slashdot.

Guys..check out CheapBytes The CD is only for $6.99 including UPS. SO what it cheaper ?

Thank goodness there is an alternative. I've had nothing but the best service and the best values from Cheapbytes. There you can find everything from Linux to FreeBSD at bargain prices with top notch service. I will never again waste a nickel on Walnut Creek ripoffs.

speaking of modules... any idea on how much smaller SCO's hardware compatibility list is than linux'??

"The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."

It seems to me that the Linux community is the Hippie revolution for the 90's. But some of you seem to think that any company that gains any marketshare and influence, they must have become "The Man" and are just trying to surpress the competition. Some companies will do that, I can think of one in particular..... But Redhat isn't like that. Reality check -- the distributions will not all grow at the same rate, one will stand above the rest. So Redhat moved some files, it's not like they made proprietory protocols, make a sym-link and stop bitching. Redhat has made more contributions to the Linux community than any other company, and how do we repay them, with suspicion and accusations. Personally I am chomping at the bit for RH 6.0 to come out at Cheapbytes.

"We all go a little mad sometimes."
--Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, Psycho (1960)

Other folks have already said, but I might as well put my two cents in, too.

I've never adminned any Linux box except for my personal one; I've run RH5.0 and 5.2 on it, and plan to upgrade to 5.9 in a week or so once Cheapbytes gets it on CD.

There are, essentially, three ways to upgrade any package with a Red Hat system.

1) Compile from scratch. You can tar -zxvf and make just like with any other Linux distro. I do it from time to time myself if what I want isn't around in RPM form yet. The only thing about doing this is that it doesn't tell your RPM database that it's installed.

2) Install from RPM. This is what most people in a hurry or who don't know how to patch or deal with odd compile errors will do. When you do this, it installs the binaries, the documentation, and puts a note in your RPM database that the package is there.

The one problem with this is that if you use compile to install some packages and RPM to install others, RPM won't realize the compiled packages are installed. But there are RPM options to override dependancy failures, so if you know that you've got that package installed, you can tell it to install anyway.

3) Build from SRPM. The SRPM, or source RPM, contains the .tar.gz'd source, plus a .spec file that contains the instructions for compiling and installing it. You can do an rpm --rebuild (or is it --recompile?) .SRPM and just watch it go. This has the double benefit of both compiling it on your machine (and thus customizing it to your specific installation) and adding it to the RPM database.

This also suggests

3a) "Roll your own" RPMs. You can do it; it's as easy as putting a script together that tells how to compile, and what files go where. I've tried it myself, for a simple program. This has the same benefits as 3) above...

Anyway...good luck with it!

Try cheapbytes.

Redhat Secure Server includes a RSA license for the Apache/SSL solution and it only costs $79.95 from Cheapbytes.

You'll have to wait a bit for them to be burned, but you can get them at

cheapbytes.com
and
linuxmall.com

cheapbytes will have em in a few days or so.

---

I've been running Mandrake 5.2 now for a little more than a month -- without it I'd still be 100% Windows. Now I'm about a 10% Windows user. Definitely worth it. I just pre-ordered it from CheapBytes who say they should have it available next week sometime. Definitely worth it if your connection doesn't allow you to download it. -Augie

I don't suppose anyone's written up a howto for upgrading out-of-the-box (or, rather, off-of-the-Cheapbytes-disk) Red Hat 5.2 to use kernel 2.2.X? I've heard some word that not all of RH5.2's components were recent enough, and I'd like to know what I'd need to change out.

Thanks...

Robotech_Master

To help those newbies:

www.linux.org

sunsite.unc.edu/mdw

www.stardivision.com

www.redhat.com

www.kde.org

www.gnome.org

www.cheapbytes.com

www.freshmeat.net

www.xnet.com/~blatura/linapps.shtml

OK So I'm somewhat biased... :)

"Linux sucks. But Linux sucks less." - JWZ