Slashdot Mirror
Canonical Halts Ubuntu CD Free-for-all
Barence writes to tell us that Canonical plans on limiting the number of "free Ubuntu CDs" that people can mooch from the company. The growing popularity of Ubuntu has seen a dramatic increase in the number of CDs being shipped via the free "ShipIt" scheme. The only people able to take advantage of this program now will be the usual community teams, contributors, and first-time Ubuntu users. "'While these CDs are often referred to as 'free CDs,' they are of course not free of cost to Canonical. We want to continue this programme, but Ubuntu’s growth means that some changes are necessary. Therefore we are adjusting how we handle CD requests to try to find the right balance between availability of CDs and the continued viability of the ShipIt program,' [Canonical's chief operating officer Jane Silber] adds. Extra CD copies of Ubuntu will still be available for purchase through the Canonical store, although they need to be bought in bulk. Five copies of the open-source operating system will cost £5 exc VAT and shipping."
I once got flamed on Slick Deals for asking people to show restraint and common sense after someone posted a deal for a free CD from Project Gutenburg. People were ordering tons of disks as if they were getting some special deal. I don't blame Canonical at all for placing limits.
They gave a disk for free? Wow, that's really awesome. I've just downloaded it the past. Looks like they will still be giving the 1st disk for free, seems ridiculously reasonable to me.
I have it running on my old D610, it's very nice. They have improved the software center, a lot. Much faster and easier to use. Imported all my settings and desktop from 9.04, no problems. Boot up seems about the same to me, but overall it seems faster. The default theme is very nice and the fonts are clear and legible.
Overall I like it a lot. Good timing for release of 9.10, too. If you're going to change everything, might as well try something else first. What do you have to lose?
It's reasonable for them to limit disk copies. It's not like someone couldn't make as many of their own copies as they wish.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The guys must get tons of orders each day and even hoax orders grow exponentially with increased popularity. I still have the old 5.10 discs around that introduced me and my friend to Ubuntu. But now with the increased internet connections and quick downloads speeds you can get it very fast and even use 'in-windows' installers in case you do not have a cd/usb stick to put the installer in.
Try Gentoo -- if you have the patience for it. Gentoo offers the, by far, best community with detailed HOWTO's on almost anything. It takes a little reading and practice but once you get the hang of it it'll be worth it.
I am the lawn!
I can't see a regular user needing just a personal copy waiting. That said, I have gotten a few to hand out at the local users group a few times, had to make a special request since I needed more than 10, but the requests got granted pretty quickly.
It's also a tax shelter country that the founder was born and raised in.
I've always though the Ubuntu folks were particularly generous giving those CD's away. I mean it's not like they were demos or trialware or something.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
This is about Ubuntu, it's Linux for Humans which often includes morons.
The free CDs were also great for advocacy. With their sleeves, pictures and artwork they look a lot better to a new or potential user than a shiny just burned CD-R. I have been unable to find the ISO image that actually corresponds to the CD I was shipped in the past, but it could be that I'm not looking hard enough.
>>a tax shelter country
Yeah, man. Parents these days!! I mean, they had to go and give birth to a child in that country just so that when he grows up and creates a company, he will get tax benefits!
He is referring to Sun Myung Moon who is a self described messiah and the leader of one of the largest cults in the world -- the Unification Church. They are famous for their mass weddings.
Anyways, Moon owns the Washington Times newspaper.
The Washington Post is a legitimate newspaper. The Washington Times is a PR operation run by the Unification Church, a cult founded by Sun Myung Moon. As a cult, the Moonies have relatively few members, but boatloads of cash, and they preach a wacky sort of fundamentalism that's useful for gaining political influence in both the Democratic and Republican wings of the Party, although not as much as The Family, the other theocractic/fundraising organization that's influencing the US political system.
(While we're on the subject of weird cults and newspapers, the Christian Science Monitor is also a legitimate newspaper, even though it's named after the Christian Science cult, it's merely kept the name and the cult has no influence on its day-to-day operations.)
....What a wonderful problem to have.
Regards;
Windows is generally not happy about allowing applications to write to the boot sector, partly to avoid viruses, and partly because it just isn't designed to support that information changing while it is running. Basically, Windows will happily swap out info which it thinks will never change, and re-read it when needed. If you've changed it by installing a boot loader, it gets very confused (blue-screen).
It may be possible to do this through the "do cool stuff during boot up" API (which is used for scandisk and some defrag tools), but it wouldn't be very easy.
Even if you don't have a CD burner and blank CD, you can boot from a USB drive as well. I usually download the 50 MB Debian "netinst" image onto a USB flash drive, boot it, and then run the net install.
I hate it when I make a joke and I get modded "+5 insightful". Mod the stupid comments "funny", not "insightful", pleas
Wubi? http://wubi-installer.org/
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
Just in case my sarcasm detector is malfunctioning, and seeing as its the second comment I've seen along these lines, here you go.
Pretty much every other PC OS uses optical discs for installation by default.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
It should be quite hard to confuse Isle of Man and South Africa, so maybe I'm missing something...
Could someone explain how this is informative?
Why not buy them from Canonical? You get 5 discs for about half the price Amazon is asking for 8.10.