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I was going to go on with the lessons on using command line commands in the shell, but I’m pressed for time so I’ll just share another personal experience that may be of help to you.

I’ve had a problem the last few weeks with doing my regular Saturday update to my Suse 10.1. I suppose mainly because I’ve learned NOT to try to update the kernel. The Yast Updater doesn’t want to let me update the files I’ve marked because I won’t proceed on certain other files where it finds discrepancies.

What to do?

Well, I went online to see what reviews and news there was about Suse 10.3 now that it is out. Does it have the same problem with the Zen Updater, or is that fixed? I was happy to see that is not a problem any more.

So then to find a place to get this Suse 10.3. I could, of course, download the ISO file and burn it to CDs or a DVD. However, I’ve tried that in the past, and found it took hours and then was not always successful in the burning the ISO to disk. I’ve ordered from online stores which do the burning for us, and sell the disks at very reasonable rates. They are lightweight and easy to send in the mail.

Linux is always free, but people can charge you for the physical disks and the mailing, and any special services they give you. You do NOT have to pay large sums to put any Linux distro on your computer.

Sigh! I could not find the budgetlinuxCD site I have bought from before - he must have taken down that site.

So I did some Google searches, and compared prices. I settled on the site, shiplinux.com for their lowest prices and the chance to get several distros at once. The Suse 10.3 DVD was only $2.99. If I spent $10 I would get free shipping. So I clicked on three other distros, Mandrivia 2008, Fedora Core 7, and Gentoo Live CD. (only $1.49)

However, I discovered a problem with the shopping cart. I was required to register and check my email to use the shopping cart. No email arrived to confirm my registration, but I decided to try to make my purchase. Before I got to the payment step, it stalled with a message that my choice for shipping, US mail, was invalid. Yet I had not made a choice.

There was an area to attach a note to my order. I tried that and explained what had happened in case that would go through to the site owner. No go.

I waited until Monday in case the owner was out of town over the weekend. (Though a shopping cart is suppose to work even when unattended). I tried again on Monday, and still came to the same blockage. So I went to the Contact page and send a message. When I checked my email later in the day I had one from the owner, saying the problem had been fixed, and I should try again, and for my trouble he would throw in an extra distro free of charge. I suggested Centos 5.

Now I’m waiting for them in the mail. I’m thinking they should be here early next week.

The moral here? Shop around, and if you run into a problem with your purchase have the patience to report it, for you will likely get extra for your trouble.