[Klug-general] Tux Magazine & CDRs

[Allen Brooker]

Hi all,

I'm currently writing a "introduction to Linux on the desktop" type talk
at the moment which I plan to give through my university computing
society (see http://compsoc.co.uk ) and while searching for relevant
material, I cam across http://tuxmagazine.com/ - it's a free on-line
magazine with some great tips for users new to Linux.


On another note, I'm currently looking at the possibility of
distributing Linux CDs at this talk. What I'd like to have is a small
range of different options - a few Gentoo CDs, a few Ubuntu ones and
perhaps something more commercial like SuSE - the actual distros are
undecided at the moment. What I'm looking for is a source of these CDs -
I probably want to do a run of about 25 CDs for each distro. Basically
I'm looking to do something slightly more professional than a plain CDR
with "Gentoo x86 Install CD" squiggled on it in my bad handwriting.

So far I've looked at LightScribe (where the CD burner can, when the CD
is flipped over, burn a label onto capable CDs), but media (particularly
CDs) for this seems limited and relatively expensive. I'm also aware of
a number of stores that sell Linux CDs - however these all charge £1 or
more per disk, which is far too expensive for what I need. I'm currently
looking into doing something like using printed Avery labels - you can
get CD label applicators and I've got one on order from Dabs (cost about
£5 so not too big a loss if it doesn't work IMO).

I've already checked with the uni computing department and unfortunately
they don't have any mass CDR burners. I also enquired as to how the UK
Gentoo lot get theirs done when they go to shows, but they just burn as
needed on-site. While this is an option, I'd prefer not to have to do
this and be free to answer further questions and such. I suspect there's
companies out there who do CDR burning, but they probably require runs
of a couple of hundred before it gets worth while.

Does anyone have any options I might have missed?


With regards to the talk itself, I'm currently at the stage of picking
exactly what's going to go into it. I want to cover enough to get people
hooked and dispel myths they may have heard (no hardware support, can't
run anything useful on the desktop, can't do gaming), but not cover so
much I give them an information overload, not to mention make the talk
boring and un-enjoyable.


Allen