Never ever install distributions from magazine cover discs unless you're happy to fix breakage. Buy them from a recommended reseller. Linux Emporium and CheepLinux are both usually good.

My third distribution which I upgraded all the way from SuSe 5.2 to 6.4 came from the cover of a magazeen and the only difference form the release version was that it had less software and a newer version of kde, unfortunately just like comercial 5.2 it also had a broken release of fetchmail, and unfortunately I didn't know until 6 months after I tried to configure fetchmail. I thought I was either missing something or that all the talk about sendmail's configuration files was misplaced. All the people who tried to help me on mailing lists and news groups must have thought I was an idiot. (some did say so)

I felt so surprised when I ran fetchmail much later and it worked first time without changing the script. That was probably SuSE 6.4 which I got on the cover of a magazeen.

Now I don't know much about installing different distributions as I do it so rarely ( I have been maybe to loyal but if it works why change just upgrade I feel), I have used SuSE for years and am now converting my poriferal computers to debian in preparation for my new computer (due when I get a nice job) but I don't know why one should not to get a Linux distribution from where ever you find one.

I strongly recommend that you use a common distribution unless you have good reason or a fare amount of experience. I don't think I shall be deleting my SuSe install even when every other machine runs debian as I want a reference to build upon. Debian does not take the hard work of configuring Linux away from you.

The Linux Emporium and Cheap Bytes will sell distributions cheaper (including p& p) than the cover of a magazeen and its possibly more upto date. I think they also would appreciate the trade in these dark days of the IT industry.

Another option is to call SuSe or one of the big comersial companys and ask if they have superceded stock (Suse do v. large discounts on SuSE 7.1 till stocks run out �10 for 6 Cd's and 1 DVD rom plus some of the best linux documentation for any distribution i have seen) you can always update the bits of linux you feel are to long in the tooth and generally the distributions are quite a long way behind the latest release (ice is a good example in SuSE).

Regards

Owen Synge