Regarding FOSS software

[mrpijey]

There's been a lot of questions recently about Linux/BSD software uploads... generally BA doesn't carry any of these since they are usually carried by FOSS sites all around the net, but I've come to the understanding that there would be value in saving them for one reason only:

If the media you got (Slackware, RedHat etc) is an original disc, or even better, with a boxcover or documentation, then perhaps there's value in preserving that. But the value would be more of saving the artwork of the disc and boxcovers rather than the contents of the disc.

So, if you got an original disc then we'll accept it. But only if you provide us with a good quality scan of the media (and boxcovers/documentation if possible). And a proper MDF dump of course.

[Courage]

What if the original method of distribution was via another way (eg. floppies, install sources)? (I remember that some early Slackware releases on the web came as a DIY kit (You had to make the floppies yourself) if you didn't want to buy the software on a CD) Would the original source of distribution still be accepted?

[mrpijey]

Anything that is original is accepted. I am interested in the original discs and floppies, not the distributions themselves. So if it's not an original but a DIY then it's not as interesting.

[Courage]

What about versions like Debian 0.91 (It only came as a binary distribution, AFAIK) Are those accepted?

[mrpijey]

Let me quote myself:

If the media you got (Slackware, RedHat etc) is an original disc, or even better, with a boxcover or documentation, then perhaps there's value in preserving that. But the value would be more of saving the artwork of the disc and boxcovers rather than the contents of the disc.

So, if you got an original disc then we'll accept it. But only if you provide us with a good quality scan of the media (and boxcovers/documentation if possible). And a proper MDF dump of course.

[MrFreeman]

Let me quote myself:

If the media you got (Slackware, RedHat etc) is an original disc, or even better, with a boxcover or documentation, then perhaps there's value in preserving that. But the value would be more of saving the artwork of the disc and boxcovers rather than the contents of the disc.

So, if you got an original disc then we'll accept it. But only if you provide us with a good quality scan of the media (and boxcovers/documentation if possible). And a proper MDF dump of course.

What if the original disc is ISO only?

[rhobariii]

What if the original disc is ISO only?

But the value would be more of saving the artwork of the disc and boxcovers rather than the contents of the disc.

[mrpijey]

What if the original disc is ISO only?

Uh, then it's not a disc, nor original .

[MrFreeman]

What if the original disc is ISO only?

Uh, then it's not a disc, nor original .

Sorry I meant "originally distributed on" (or something like that), rather than "original disc is".

If i do come across such distros, should I just convert it to MDF?

[mrpijey]

No, that wouldn't be interesting. And convert an ISO to MDF is pointless.

As I said, original physical media, nothing else.

[MrFreeman]

No, that wouldn't be interesting. And convert an ISO to MDF is pointless.

As I said, original physical media, nothing else.

Usually there is no physical media though. If there was, it is usually made and sold by third parties. Usually free distros do not sell physical copies; so there for, there can't be an original physical copy.

[mrpijey]

Some do yes, but some don't:

Ubuntu ShipIt (now closed)

Slackware

(didn't look for any more as these are the ones I've ordered in the past)

Either way they are original, third party or not. This is what we want, not a site dump from each distros website...

[Vith]

I want to give some perspective on those retail linux boxes. It's only my experience, but it was the same for many people (not all), depending on your location and age. They may seem pointless now, and they may be. However, they were really useful in the 90s. If you were older and/or lived in a country with more technology, where computers were more widespread, then they may not have been as interesting. But in my country, we just didn't have enough bandwidth to download them in a reasonable amount of time. Maybe in universities, and I'm not sure. At home it would have taken me forever. Way too long and expensive. In addition to that, I barely had enough space to store it, I had a 4GiB hard drive and the download was... like 1.8GiB. Also, I didn't have a cd recorder yet. If you were like me, you probably didn't even have an internet connection. When I got one, I recall thinking 30MiB were completely impossible to download with my old modem, made even worse due to the fact you could lose the whole download if someone called while you were connected. That is, until I found out what getright/download managers were.

The retail red hat 5.2 box I bought in 1998 was very useful. It cost me 42€, and came with a big manual that was great. After all, linux was quite primitive back then, it was... quite crude. Without the internet, all I had was a few articles in magazines, really. I'm sure many cool things could be found in different BBS, but it was expensive and you needed numbers I didn't have. And I was a child, not really allowed to do it. To be honest, when i bought the box, I didn't even know it was free. I simply thought that was the only way you could get it, like windows. I had to translate all the text with the help of a dictionary, word by word, because I simply wasn't able to read english. Another way of getting operating systems was buying magazines, and I think I also got slackware that way. But man, that thing was too hostile for my young brain.

A million years later, I got 2 retail ubuntu cdroms thatthey didn't come with any extra documents. I simply got them because they were free.

I know it may sound strange, but the combination of not knowing many people with computers, not having the internet, not having books, being young (which means not having money, lacking experience, contacts, BBS numbers...). It was you, at home, alone, thinking oh, this picture in my magazine looks cool, I want to install that! now... what is it exactly? os/2? linux? where do I get it and what am I supposed to do with it? It was my teacher who helped me to buy it. It just seemed like the best/only way to make it work. And that was a maybe, a big challenge. But yeah, you suddenly had cdroms and a book. It was a language you didn't understand, but it was a book, with stuff. Yeah, good start. Then.. I installed red hat, just to see it didn't have a dependency manager (also, dependencies were a new concept for me). Hell, hell I tell you. But also fun.

[giantsteen]

I have 6 different disks (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Server) from the ShipIt program. When I get home in November I would gladly make some disk copies.

[Lluixhi]

I also have (many) original Linux Distro CDs, but quite a few of them are still (unopened) in the original packaging.

I have a few distros which are no longer available on line (Lindows/Linspire come to mind)..

If you guys are interested in these disks, I could upload them.. but then I'd have to break the packaging ;P
(New Official Fedora, Ubuntu, and OpenSUSE discs included)

Offtopic Comment

SCALE is nice.

[DiskingRound]

I also have (many) original Linux Distro CDs, but quite a few of them are still (unopened) in the original packaging.

I have a few distros which are no longer available on line (Lindows/Linspire come to mind)..

If you guys are interested in these disks, I could upload them.. but then I'd have to break the packaging ;P
(New Official Fedora, Ubuntu, and OpenSUSE discs included)

Offtopic Comment

SCALE is nice.

Please upload them to the FTP ASAP! I don't really care about the packaging.

[GL1zdA]

generally BA doesn't carry any of these since they are usually carried by FOSS sites all around the net

The problem is, this isn't true. It's for example impossible to find old Debian releases for other architectures, because the ISOs are regularly deleted from the archive: http://archive.debian.org/debian/dists/ and no one keeps them mirrored . While you can try to reconstruct it from the sources it's a PITA.

[pittical]

Even worse, once we stray into the area of online updates, those sites/repositories would (ideally) need to be preserved, too. Have fun with that, especially with rolling releases like Gentoo or Arch.

I've needed Gentoo portage snapshots that were, at that point, up to around two or three years old (as intermediate steps to update some old machines) and already had some trouble finding those. Thinking about re-experiencing the beginnings of Gentoo? Forget about it.

[mrpijey]

Well, any of you could make your own "LinuxArchive" site and preserve all those dists, only then would you realise the kind of effort and resources needed for such a task. We don't have the time nor capacity to deal with the hundreds of dists and thousands of versions, compiles and builds. It's simply not possible, which is why at least focus on the retail/printed dists that came out on physical media.