18 Apr 2011

How Much of Linux Can You Get for 0.01 GBP?

You know that modern Internet life is all around search. Search facility is "a must" on all respectable resources. Even my blog has search facility - just look at the right column.
Sometimes search can give you some weird results, as was with me recently.
I was looking at Amazon site for some books about Fedora, just wondering if there are any decent readings about this Operation System. For some reason, Amazon's search engine threw a link to the list, which had nothing to do with Fedora. That was an offer of OpenSuSE 11.3 DVD. Not only the link itself surprised me, but also the price. The offer was made for 0.01 British Pound including postage costs. You can understand that one penny does not cover even cost of DVD creation, not talking about postage, Amazon and credit card processing charges.
These guys not only offer OpenSuSE for ridiculous price. You can also get Ubuntu, Kubuntu, OpenOffice - all for 0.01 GBP.
Just out of curiosity, I ordered that DVD with OpenSuSE.
What was the result?

Disk came fast enough, as you may expect from reliable Royal Mail service.
As far as I can tell, this is DVD-RW disk with LightScribe technology.
Data side of the disk is of highest quality. No issues on that part.
Although top side of the disk, the one with LightScribe picture, is barely readable. If you can definitely tell OpenSuSE logo on it, then you can hardly recognise KDE letters. Where is GNOME? And other small print is unreadable at all.
Does it make any difference? From my perspective, this is not importat what you SEE on disk. This is more important what is RECORDED on disk.
So... disk is in the drive of my Toshiba laptop. Reboot. Choose to boot from DVD. Let's go!
If you read my blog for some time, you should know that I prefer to try Live versions of operating systems. That is true because I don't want to put my system at risk by installing different OSes. And also because Live run takes significantly less time to start compared to installed version. After all, Live runs (should) allow you to evaluate the system, at least its default features, check hardware compatibility without much risk of system disruption.
Unfortunately, OpenSuSE DVD is not Live-enabled. The options available there are to install the system or emergency rescue it.  If I knew... Actually, if you look at official download page of OpenSuSE 11.3, you can figure it out yourself, though not very straight-forward way. GNOME- and KDE-enabled CDs are marked as Live, while DVD does not have this remark in description. Same is valid for newer version 11.4.
Saying this, my acquittance with one-penny DVD was very short.
Another bit which surprised me is that version of OpenSuSE on offer was 11.3. Why is it 11.3, if newer 11.4 was released more than a month ago? I have already written about my disappointments from it!
Anyway... that was done. Another DVD will stack up my shelf now. If anyone is interested in it, please let me know. I'll send it to you for free (sorry, you need to cover postage costs only, I am not so generous as guys from Amazon).
What is the point of placing an offer on Amazon for selling the product which drives you to the losses straight away? The most obvious reason is popularization of Linux. This operation system should be available for everyone who is interested in it, even for those with restricted ability to download content from Internet or record iso images.
And if you want to Buy Linux CDs, you are also welcome to do so from linked page. These CDs are always Live ones, so you can be sure you can test the operating system without having to install it.

2 comments:

  1. Really? 0.01 GBP ? Thats less than 250 Iranian Rial. The cheapest/worst bubblegum is 500 Rial!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, that cost me only 0.01 GBP!

    ReplyDelete