[ale] cheapest place to buy redhat?

[Matt McMillin]

Arnold (and ALE folks),

It would appear from your later messages that you may have 
already bought yourself a copy of RH 4.0, but belatedly or not,
I thought I would mention the following thought (which only 
occurred to me a day or so ago):

I bought my first copy of Red Hat through a company called
Surplus Direct (800-753-7877, formerly "Surplus Software," I 
think), that specializes in selling outdated versions of 
software.  At the time, RH 2.1 was the current version, so 
RH 2.0 was listed in the catalog.  However, what I *received* 
when I ordered RH 2.0 was actually RH 2.1.  I don't know if 
this was due to the fact that RH 3.0.3 was well on its way to 
being released, or because the company's catalog did not 
agree with its stock, though I suspect the latter.

The thrust of all this is that I was able to get the current version
of a Red Hat distribution for something like $24.95 instead of the
standard $34.95 or $39.95, or whatever the list price was at the
time.  Other people may (or may not) be able to repeat my 
experience with this place.  I was thinking about calling them to 
see if they were distributing copies of RH 4.0 yet (RH 3.0.3 is now
listed in their catalog).  If anyone beats me to it, or is able to get
another distribution newer than what they have listed, please let
me know so that I don't have to pester them any more than 
necessary.  (Thanks!)

Also, WGS seems to sell single CDs with different distributions on
each.  Last time I looked, they each cost $14.95.  The Red Hat CD
wouldn't include all the other items in the RH 4.0 "boxed set," of
course, but it would be a particularly cheap way of getting the 
current distribution.  Well, I hope it would be current; I haven't
checked to see if they're distributing RH 4.0 yet.  Moreover, as a
disclaimer, I think I should mention that the Linux Pro set of six CDs
was worth nowhere near the $49.95 I paid for it (what was I thinking?).
My favorite parts were where they included a demo version of 
Accelerated X (or something like that) that had expired before I even
*bought* the CDs, and where they had a note in one of the README
files that said something about how they had hoped to put more
cool stuff on the "cool stuff" CD, but they ran out of time, and there
would probably be more cool stuff in future versions.  Whoopee.

-M
(former Iterated employee)


----------
 From:  Arnold D. Robbins[SMTP:arnold at colorstar.com]
Sent:  Friday, December 13, 1996 1:04 PM
To:  ale at cc.gatech.edu
Subject:  [ale] cheapest place to buy redhat?

Where's the cheapest place to buy redhat 4.0?  Thanks --Arnold