Jalaj P. Jha Technical & Miscellaneous Ramblings

Free Ubuntu 8.10 CDs

I had been using Linux distribution occasionally just to keep myself acquainted with them, since 1996. Thereafter my work required Red Hat Linux 6.1 installation for qmail, dial-up server etc. After I changed my job, I now no longer require Linux at Work and largely work on Windows XP, 2000, Vista and MacOS. For last few years, while there has been many advances in Linux and applications bundled in various distributions, I had the same old CDs with me. Installing old versions dating back to 2004 seemed a bad idea, and I had no interest in purchasing the magazines that carried Linux distributions as my old PC had no DVD drive, and the magazines now mostly prefers DVDs for distribution.

Now after my recent notebook purchase I thought I should install Linux as secondary OS, but where would I get latest CDs? The magazines that carry Linux distributions don’t do it every month and finding a back-issue was a difficult task. I checked the web and found https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ which delivers free CDs around the globe for promoting ubuntu. Since the delivery alone can take 4-6 weeks, they suggest and provide ISO image download too, but with my net connection having a limit of max 1GB per month I thought requesting a CD would be better.

I requested the CDs and it took 10 days for approval and shipping to the courier company. And within next 5 weeks the CDs were with me. Thanks to Canonical for the Free CDs, and thanks to Indian Postal Services too who delivered it to me despite second line of address missing from the address label.

If you too are requesting the CD make it sure that you write your ZIP/PIN code accurately and include as much info as possible in the first line of address itself. This would ensure that you will receive the CDs even if the same problem happens in your case too. And in case you can afford to download 700+ MB of ISO image you can start using Ubuntu right away. The url for download is http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download.