[LUGSB] Linux LiveCDs

[Matthew Gruen]

On the subject of allocations: our funds are shared with SBCS. I don't
think there's a danger we won't use our joint budget by the end of the
year, especially because they're going to be doing some community work
this semester... but it is definitely nice to have LiveCDs lying
around.

<http://shop.canonical.com/product_info.php?products_id=746>

5 Ubuntu 10.10 CDs are about $8, and 10 for $16, and 20 for $28. If
Canonical doesn't give us a special deal, this seems a bit pricey.
11.04 is coming out in 2 months, and buying nicely packaged CDs every
6 months seems like a nice way to get a large collection of nicely
packaged CDs, if nothing else :)

If you're worried about packaging, it's not too hard to make something
nice-looking by yourself. Kinkos can print out pretty CD labels and
case sleeves. Still, buying straight from Canonical seems like a
reasonable expense to me. Bring it up at the meeting tomorrow.

Cheers,
Matt

On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 4:42 PM, Richard Yao <ryao at ic.sunysb.edu> wrote:
> Dear Everyone,
>
> Every semester, I meet a few Windows users that would probably be
> happier with a Linux distribution, but going through the trouble of
> downloading an burning an ISO is enough trouble that they never do it.
> I know I could give CDs that I burn myself to people, but software
> tends to be unappealing to people unless it comes in professionally
> designed packaging, which is something that I could not afford to do.
>
> I ran into such a person today. I demonstrated my laptop and told her
> that it does not slow down as it ages and she was interested in it. I
> had some Ubuntu CDs that Canonical had mailed me a few years ago, so I
> gave them to her. I told her that one ran KDE, which was like Windows;
> that the other ran GNOME, which was like Mac OS X; and that she should
> try them both to see which of the two she liked better. I also warned
> her that the software was two years old, but she ran Windows XP, so
> she did not mind. Unlike the past when I would tell people to go get
> the software to use it, she said that she would try them out and let
> me know how she liked them the next time we ran into each other.
>
> With that in mind, I would like to get more professionally packaged
> LiveCDs to give to people so that they can try Linux. Canonical gives
> free LiveCDs to people, but I seem to have reached my quota for them.
> I imagine that being a University Linux Users group Canonical would be
> willing to give us a large allocation of LiveCDs for little to nothing
> if we asked. Is there any chance that we could try asking Canonical
> for a large allocation of them through LUGSB?
>
> If it turns out that we have to pay for them, then we would not be
> restricted to buying Ubuntu Linux LiveCDs. There are other
> distributions that target new users that we could consider, such as
> Sabayon Linux and Linux Mint. Maybe we could talk about allocating
> funds for this at our next meeting. Also, I believe that the
> university has a policy of cutting funding for clubs that did not use
> all of the previous semesters' funding, so instead of taking a funding
> cut next semester, we could use any excess funds we have to either buy
> Linux LiveCDs to give to people or donate to open source development
> (e.g. Sabayon Linux, Codewavers, KDE).
>
> Yours truly,
> Richard Yao
> _______________________________________________
> lugsb mailing list
> lugsb at fsl.cs.sunysb.edu
> To unsubscribe from this list, go to:
> http://www.fsl.cs.sunysb.edu/mailman/listinfo/lugsb
>