Frankly, don't worry... It is an age old practise for distro companies to offer an "evaluation" CD - SuSE themselves have been since '99. The live CD is bootable, and usually installable too - with enough stuff to help make up your mind if you would want the set.
Now on the lines of distribution, it's best to let SuSE tackle it, but SuSE really won't mind if you do a little publicity on their part ;) In truth, you just have an "evaluation" version of the distro - and it naturally *differs* from the healthy full set of usual 5CD + 2 DVD + the manual that comes with it. Now coming to distribution of the *full* version - don't worry now about that much either ! What's on the 5CDs are the usual SuSE specific binary RPMs (and few basic docs) for anything that Debian/RedHat/Yada - yada gives you plus a few more commercial apps (perhaps on the CDs or separately). Also, SuSE periodically made the ISOs for the 5 discs available after a definite interval (about 2 months) following the product launch for all platforms *except* IA32. Infact, the version for AMD (K6) used to come out first. SuSE's *special* offering is the YAST2 - the *best* installer and package manager on this planet. This is what SuSE is all about. And the KDE that ships with SuSE will make Darwin users drool (and with Novell funding SuSE, it's GNOME offering should see facelifts) YAST2 offers automatic dependency checking, package searching, package details and goodies at the installation level itself ! The hush - hush about sharing SuSE discs *was* (past tense) that a SuSE was nothing without YAST2, *and* YAST2 specifically prohibited it's commercial distribution by 3rd parties without authorization. Now that I hear YAST2 is GPL'ed, unless it's use is dual licensed - there's no need to worry - you can make as much gain off a SuSE set as GNU/FSF does selling software. However, you nor others obtaining from you are eligible for the nice manual and extensive product support legendary of SuSE, and the nice product vouchers they give with the cool looking shrink-wrapped cardboard box. The manual carries an ID code within it's first few pages using which you can register at SuSE online for product support. But then, we are here for help and you can *easily* update your SuSE installation using YAST2 from the many SourceForge servers on our planet. Again, on the other hand, you will be doing some good sending the folks at Germany some "notes" of your appreciation (did you get the pun ?) WARNING: Most of my enthusiastic comments are written in an addled state of mind - if I am wrong somewhere here, correct me ASAP ! Warm regards Subhobroto Sinha http://www.geocities.com/subhobrotosinha -------------------- If there were no god, it would be necessary to invent him - Volataire -------------------- __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail -- To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the body "unsubscribe ilug-cal" and an empty subject line. FAQ: http://www.ilug-cal.org/node.php?id=3
