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adanms
July 15th, 2006, 07:16 PM
I found this to be the most suuitable thread for this. I just ordered Ubuntu cds from shipit 3 days ago and I was wondering... Is it really free or you pay something? Does it really arrive? Do I donwload the Ubuntu in case the order doesnt work out? And by the way do if I decide to download do I download desktop or server? :confused: :confused:

Jagot
July 15th, 2006, 07:24 PM
Yes they are really free. Yes they turn up, but depending on where you are they can take a while - mine took about 6 weeks to reach the UK.

If you don't want to wait that time then you can download it and burn yourself.

If you want to create a server (which won't by default have a GUI) then download the server version. If you want to run a normal desktop PC with GUI the download the desktop version.

skizz
July 15th, 2006, 08:42 PM
Hello. I was wondering about this, too. As seen, I live in Romania. I want to find out if the shipping in this country is really free. Anyone from Romania or at least from Central Europe shipped the CDs? Where can I find out if it's totally free (no hidden catches, no cost at all)?
I haven't got any damn money, that's why I'm so 'affraid' :D.

Thanks,
A.

John.Michael.Kane
July 15th, 2006, 08:51 PM
You should only use the Desktop live/install CD (http://se.releases.ubuntu.com/6.06/ubuntu-6.06-desktop-i386.iso) for testing as there has been some endusers who have had issues installing from it.If your absolutely sure you want to do a full install of ubuntu use the Alternate install CD (http://se.releases.ubuntu.com/6.06/ubuntu-6.06-alternate-i386.iso)


And yes ship-it will send you the Desktop-Live-install-CD free. however if you can your best off downloading the iso if you can't wait.

hellmet
July 15th, 2006, 08:56 PM
Hello. I was wondering about this, too. As seen, I live in Romania. I want to find out if the shipping in this country is really free. Anyone from Romania or at least from Central Europe shipped the CDs? Where can I find out if it's totally free (no hidden catches, no cost at all)?
I haven't got any damn money, that's why I'm so 'affraid' :D.

Thanks,
A.
wherever you are in this fu***** world..u'll get ur cds for free..
Unless your conuntry's postman wants to charge DUTY for that...
99.99% its not the case anyway..
so relax and enjoy ur cds when u get 'em

skizz
July 15th, 2006, 09:03 PM
wherever you are in this fu***** world..u'll get ur cds for free..
Unless your conuntry's postman wants to charge DUTY for that...
99.99% its not the case anyway..
so relax and enjoy ur cds when u get 'em

That was a hell of a post, dude... Now I'm 100% convinced that it's totally-extremly-unimaginable FREE. Now I can sleep without the thought that I'll get sucked of money... You guys at Ubuntu are really cool.

P.S. Well... The delivering services in Romania are kind of... Stinky. I hope the postman will do his damn job.

adanms
July 15th, 2006, 11:11 PM
So I should download the Alternate one? Yeah, the Desktop sounded like it was Live-CD so that's why I asked... Ship-it sends either Desktop or Server does that mean I'm going to get a Live-CD? :mrgreen:

Jagot
July 15th, 2006, 11:12 PM
Where can I find out if it's totally free (no hidden catches, no cost at all)?

http://www.ubuntu.com/support/faq#head-7eef2db63e0a75424cdd663ee6f7b8eedcf19607

Jagot
July 15th, 2006, 11:15 PM
So I should download the Alternate one? Yeah, the Desktop sounded like it was Live-CD so that's why I asked... Ship-it sends either Desktop or Server does that mean I'm going to get a Live-CD? :mrgreen:

Shipit sends the Live CD.

It's up to you which you download. I prefer the Alternate CD installer. You can see it in action here:

http://users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/p3.htm

Others prefer the Desktop (Live) CD:

http://psychocats.net/ubuntu/installing.html

GuitarHero
July 15th, 2006, 11:59 PM
yarly it is

AndyCooll
July 16th, 2006, 01:41 AM
The "shipit" version is the Live/Desktop CD version. It boots up into the Live CD, yes, however on the desktop is an "Install" icon. Click this and you will startup a GUI based full installation. The GUI approach is the way the Ubuntu team see all future Ubuntu installations methods going (it is new to this version of Ubuntu, previously we've only had the text based approach). It is, they believe, more user friendly. IMHO it's a bit of scaremongering to say this is problematic. I've installed Ubuntu on a few boxes using the shipit CD's and haven't had any problems.

The "alternate" version is really for those who prefer the old installation method (which is text based).

:cool:

Sef
July 27th, 2006, 06:22 AM
The "alternate" version is really for those who prefer the old installation method (which is text based).

The alternate version is fairly simple to install. You are seclecting your country, langauge, name, username, password. If you select the default even partitioning is easy. If you want or need to manual partition that can get tricky for someone who has not had a bit of experience doing that.

Boomy
July 27th, 2006, 06:29 AM
I just ordered one yesterday. My whole life I've lived by the saying "Nothing's Free", but I'll be damned. How do they ship it for free?

3rdalbum
July 27th, 2006, 09:40 AM
I just ordered one yesterday. My whole life I've lived by the saying "Nothing's Free", but I'll be damned. How do they ship it for free?

Nothing special... just a Star Trek replicator they pinched from the Universal Studios and a couple of carrier pidgeon slaves.

Seriously though, they do it through the backing of someone "with a quasi-infinite chequebook" (to use the words of a jealous founder of another distro), and with the hope that Ubuntu will become so popular that there will be a market for support.

Miguel
July 27th, 2006, 12:03 PM
While those CD's are free by themselves, it's possible that they carry an associated cost. I don't know if it is the Ubuntu foundation or Canonical who pays for the CD's but, in the former case, money spent on shipit CD's is money not spent on developers/laptop testing/servers/whatever.

Yes, I'm feeling a bit pedantic today.

linuxuser28
July 27th, 2006, 12:18 PM
As I learned with the last version of Ubuntu the disks are shipped for free. I even ordered a few extra for friends. The problem is it takes so long to ship them you are better off downloading it and burning it to a CD.

sabitha
July 27th, 2006, 01:28 PM
in my country (indonesia;Jakarta) i need to pay Rp 3.000,- but not only me my friend on bandung need to pay more expensive Rp 8.000,- when the cd arrived. the postoffice say there is a cost packages. i dont know whre is true. :sad:

Lord Illidan
July 27th, 2006, 01:35 PM
While those CD's are free by themselves, it's possible that they carry an associated cost. I don't know if it is the Ubuntu foundation or Canonical who pays for the CD's but, in the former case, money spent on shipit CD's is money not spent on developers/laptop testing/servers/whatever.

Yes, I'm feeling a bit pedantic today.

Popularity, I guess. It's like in marketing. Money spent on advertising is not spent on improving the product itself.

I don't think Shuttleworth is pressed for money..however, I always make it a point never to get more cds than I need. Wastage is always a problem.

And yep, I didn't pay a cent for the cds!

adam.tropics
July 27th, 2006, 02:06 PM
well if you're concerned about your cds taking away development funds (a valid point too I think) then get them someplace else, such as

http://free.thelinuxstore.ca/ (scroll to bottom of page)<--also free

Although, along those lines, maybe there should be 'shipit volunteers', as many of us really don't need the official cds (stickers would be nice though!!!) and are able to send out a couple burned cds to those who may not have broadband in our own countries. Local postage, call it a donation to the cause! Often in threads you will see people volunteering to send a dial up victim a disc. perhaps we should see just how many people are prepared to give a little back!

Brunellus
July 27th, 2006, 03:40 PM
Note that some countries impose customs duties on shipit CDs. Back when Hoary released we had some reports of people being very upset when they had to pay duty on their Shipit CDs.

This only becomes a consideration if you order lots of ShipIt CDs--20-50 at a time seems to be the trigger.

n00bWillingToLearn
July 28th, 2006, 10:03 AM
As far as I have heard if anyone, anywhere, was charged duties or anything else for Ubuntu CD's THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN. The only reason people are charged duties is because whoever delivers the CD's doesn't know/believe that the CD's are really free and so WRONGFULLY charge the recipient duties. For this reason there is a note on the back of the package the CD's are shipped with that says
To whom it may concern,
Canonical Ltd. is a global organisation headquartered in the Isle of Man
committed to the development, distribution and promotion of open source software products, and
to providing tools and support to the open source community.
One of Canonical's projects is the Ubuntu Operating system. Ubuntu is developed as free
and open source software and can be used, modified, and redistributed without permission and
completely free of charge. As part of it's promoting Ubuntu, Canonical Ltd. sends CDs, completely
free of charge through the mail to users who request them. The software on the CDs can also be
downloaded at no cost through our website.
The Ubuntu CDs in all shipments are distributed completely free of charge. For shipping
purposes, we declare a 0.26 EUR value for each CD. If you have any questions, please don't
hesitate to contact me personally.
Sincerely,
Benjamin Mako Hill
Community Development Coordinator
Phone/FAX: (+1) 815.361.7509
Email: mako@canonical.com So if you run into any trouble ( which is very rare as far as I can tell ) show them this message on the package ( If they speak English ) or ask them to contact him or if you are really concerned you can contact him now and ask him if there have been any previous problems with sending to Romania.

[edit] As for whether to use the Desktop (live) or alternate (text based) install, if you have less than 192 meg of ram you need to use the alternate install CD, otherwise the liveCD is generally the prefered installation method.

Brunellus
July 28th, 2006, 01:55 PM
I'd have to dig around the archive, but I believe users in the Syrian Arab Republic have had to pay duty. And things being what they are in Syria, I wouldn't fight too hard.

n00bWillingToLearn
July 28th, 2006, 10:07 PM
I'd have to dig around the archive, but I believe users in the Syrian Arab Republic have had to pay duty. And things being what they are in Syria, I wouldn't fight too hard.
You are probably right and I shouldn't have made such a blanket statement especially since I have not really looked into the problem very much. Just to be clear what I wrote was only what I have heard in conversations with others and not anything official from Cononical.I did however find an official answer in the shipit FAQ @ http://www.ubuntu.com/support/faq#head-7eef2db63e0a75424cdd663ee6f7b8eedcf19607
Including a generic letter to customs officials. That answer seems to imply that there are indeed areas where duties must be paid for Ubuntu CDs but does not list them.