Here's A Thought: Linux Mint Free Media Project

[intoDesign.ca]

Hopefully this has not been brought up in the past, but I would like to suggest a project where by we have volunteers (and yes I am the first to volunteer) that burn and mail out CD / DVD media of Linux Mint to users who wish to try out the OS but can not because they do not have a burner, their bandwidth is too slow, they pay for internet by the minute, or whatever the case may be.

Just wanted to see what managements thoughts on this was and if they believe this viable for Linux Mint.

Obviously more work needs to go into this, but I am open to doing what needs to be done to get started.

[vrkalak]

This is exactly what they are doing at OSDisc.com, where you can buy a LiveCD, of most any Linux distro.

The price is only $1.68 to pay for the CD itself, every thing else is done by volunteers.

I ordered my first Ubuntu 9.04 LiveCD, from them. It had all 4 versions of Ubuntu on it; with a professional looking label and everything.

[intoDesign.ca]

Right.... I was thinking something more along the lines of the Free Media Project that members of the community burn the cds and distribute them to the users free of charge.

[Pierre]

If you live in the US, then $1.68 is fairly close to free ....

[ibm450]

it would be fantastic if there was a service pack, so to speak, for those who like me have limited internet access at work. or a cd/dvd of deb installs / upgrades etc now that be awesome or a dvd / cd with driver collections for wireless cards, video cards etc etc

[ichat]

sorry mate, but this is where you can see that Opensource is NOT free,

i allready resent the idea that allmost ALL linux distro's use http / ftp for dowloading of files (iso's and updates) rather than using some sort of Torrent or gnutella (or whatever). aa

you shouldn't want to help 'free loaders' become more so, cuz at some point people would start demanding 'there right to have a cdrom burned for them'

if people would send me a black cdrom and a REALLY nicly written letter asking me if it wouldn't be to mutch trouble to burn mint for them i would be more than willing ...

but you see, this for them is NOT free, as they have to pay for the cdrom-r an envelope to send it to me, some sort of sticker with thair address on it, and an extra stamp so i can send it back to them - its probably about 1.50 dollar to them, - so here you can see:

if i send 100 coppy's of eatch mint version it would cose me 300$ per year ...

who do you think use linux mint ' all the bill gates's of this world ' ????

sorry mate its never gonna happen:

not because i dont want it to happen but becauze about 999 out of every 1k people think the same as i do...

[scott_R]

A much better option, IMHO, is to start a Linux User Group (LUG) in your area. Back in the <cough>old days<cough>, a handful of college folks and corporates had high speed connections (and cd burners), and if you think a slow/metered connection is a pain today...well...lol. LUGs were a bit more common back then, partially because you could go once a month or so, and they were always giving away the new version of whatever distro caught your eye (the "prize" for my group back then was the full debian distro, at around a dozen cds...which goes to show you how long ago that was!).

It's something that's kind of passed by the wayside more recently, and that's a shame, because LUGs are a great way to introduce people not only to Linux and bypass those initial install show-stoppers, but most importantly, to share the community spirit and toss aside the illusion that Linux users are a bunch of trolls with no life beyond a keyboard.

Plus they tend to give away a lot of free stuff, especially at the ones hosted by local computer shops, from disks to plush Tux dolls, to the occasional system the group would raffle off every so often. Toss in food and high-caffeine drinks provided from the slush fund or generous souls, and hours fly by, and you can't wait till the next one starts...even if you're someone that doesn't know or care beans about Linux, but was just dragged there by a friend, parent, or significant other.

So, to say the least, I disagree with the anti-freeloader comments, because many of the folks keeping the community thriving today were dragged to their first LUG, and loved the sense of community and the spirit of sharing, be it ideas or bandwidth, not to mention "challenges" and other competitions. It's easy enough to ignore online requests by "freeloaders" if you're not in a position to assist them, and if you are, you're not encouraging bad behavior, you're opening the door to allow someone to enjoy the same OS you enjoy.

Oh, and there are plenty of torrents for practically all distros out there, so I'm not sure what the rest of that is about...sigh...