Introduction to Technical Support

We support all of our CDROM products. However, in order to guarantee a quick response to everyone who contacts us, we ask that you first check to make sure your question hasn't been answered in our FAQ below, or in any of the other relevant documentation. We'd also like to remind you that you are only eligible for technical support if you purchased one of our CDROM products.

Notes on our Shareware Collections

Many of our CDROM products are collections of shareware and freeware programs from the Internet. While we can help you to use our CDROM browser software to extract the files to your local computer, we can not teach you how to use the individual programs. If you have a problem with one of the programs included on one of our CDROMs, you should contact the author of the software. We do not have the resources to keep tabs on the thousands of developers who have produced software on our CDROMs. If you can not find the author through the normal means of reading the documentation, searching the web, and searching the newsgroups, then please don't mail us because we won't be able to find him or her either!

Notes on our Game Toolkits

Our game toolkits usually provide additional maps and utilities for popular games. You must already own a copy of the actual game to use the CD correctly. If you have trouble installing one of the add-on programs, then you should contact the author of that program or the software company that developed the game. Please keep in mind that we do not make, sell, produce, or distribute Quake, Hexen, or any other ID Software titles, therefore we can not provide technical support for them.

Notes on our Unix distributions

We will gladly help you with any problems you encounter during the installation of Linux or FreeBSD. However, we ask that you thoroughly read all the documentation before calling us. It is also a good idea to search the newsgroups before emailing us. The Dejanews newsgroup database contains every message posted to usenet in recent years. You can easily type in something like 'linux ppp configuration' or 'freebsd login_getclass error' and get the answers to your questions before you could normally even pick up the phone.

Advanced Network troubleshooting problems with Linux or FreeBSD are a little out of the scope of our free installation technical support. You can find many commercial network consultants for Unix on the internet.


FreeBSD- http://www.freebsd.org/commercial/consulting.html
Linux- http://www.ssc.com/linux/consult/Consultants-HOWTO.html


Frequently Asked Questions

  • Our FTP site
    - mirroring our archive
    - looking for files
  • QRZ Ham Radio
    - missing QRZ32.DLL
    - database folder
    - birthdates
  • 2000 True Type Fonts
    - font name lookup
  • GNU Software
    - libg++ libraries
    - solaris installation
  • Linux
    - booting problems
    - linux unleashed
    - umsdos installs
    - hardware compatibility
    - ppp configuration
    - printer configuration
    - difference between slackware and redhat
  • FreeBSD
    - booting problems
    - hardware compatibility
    - ppp configuration
    - printer configuration
    - freebsd vs linux


    Our ftp site (ftp.cdrom.com)


  • How do I upload files to your site using Netscape? Can I email them to you?

    To upload files to our ftp site, you must use an ftp client. Please see our ftp howto for more information.

  • I would like to mirror your archive, could you please send me more information

    No information is really neccessary. You can mirror our archive just like you'd mirror any other archive, just make sure you follow the standard guidelines.

    - Set up your mirror for an off-peak time such as after midnight PST.
    - Email the maintainers of the directories you mirror, so they may keep their mirror lists up to date.

    We do not offer any training courses in the usage of mirroring software at this time.

  • Do you have any files that let me do this?

    Probably. We have over 1 million files online and no one here has memorized what every single one does; that's what the index files are for. If you have a question about one of our CDROM products we will happily assist you, but we are spending a great deal of money providing this free service, and we cannot find files for you or teach you how to use them unless you've purchased one of our CDROM's. If you know the name of the file you are looking for, you can use our online search engine here.


    QRZ Ham Radio Callsign Database CD-ROM


  • When I try to install QRZ! Volume 10 on Windows 95 I get an error saying the file 'QRZ32.DLL' is missing. How do I fix this?

    Sorry for the inconvenience. Early releases of this CD made it out the door with a missing file, which you can download here. Simply copy this file into your windows\system directory and everything should work fine.

  • I'm having a problems using the QRZ! Volume 9 CD on a Macintosh. When I double click the yellow call sign icon it asks me for a database folder, and I don't know what to do. The older versions of the CD didn't used to do this?!

    Select 'callbk'

  • Why aren't birthdates included in the newest volumes of the QRZ CD?

    In February of 1997, the FCC stopped tracking birthdates. Since the QRZ database is derived from the FCC database, we no longer have access to this information.


    2000 True Type Fonts


  • What filename contains the font 'XXXXXX'? (Where 'XXXXXX' is any font name)

    You can find a list of all the filenames and their respective formal font names here.


    GNU Software


  • I can't seem to use the GNU C++ compiler included on the CD, it appears that maybe some of the libraries are missing? Where can I get these libraries?

    Sorry for the mistake, you may download the the complete libg++ libraries here.

  • I'm having trouble using the install script from your GNU CDROM.

    The install script calls a helper-script named "copyit" as part of the installation process. On most systems, the current directory is not in the search path so you have to run "./copyit" instead of just "copyit".

    The easiest solution is to simply add the current directory into your search path temporarily. This depends on your shell (see the man page for details) but in tcsh, you would simply use the 'setenv' command. If for some reason you can not add the current directory ('.') into your search path, you should add the absolute path your installation directory instead ("/mnt/gnu_199702/solaris/bin" or however its named on your system).

    After the new directory has been added to your path, the install scripts should work fine.


    Linux


  • The bare.i bootdisk on newer linux distributions fails to see my cdrom drive. I used to be able to use the idecd.i file from older distributions but this file is no longer included. How can I get my cdrom drive to work?!

    Some of the PCI services in the linux kernel have changed. Try typing in ramdisk hdb=cdrom at the boot: prompt. If this works for you, you can then add this to the lilo configuration.

  • I just bought "[Redhat/Slackware] Linux Unleashed", and can't get it to install. What do I do?

    Contact Sams Publishing (the authors of the book). We have no agreement with them and can't support other peoples' products.

  • UMSDOS install for Slackware 3.4 always fails. Older versions worked fine, whats the problem?

    The UMSDOS installation image on the CDROM is corrupt, you can get the correct root disk here.

  • How can I get PPP installed?

    There are various documents covering ppp configuration available online at http://www.linux.org. After you have read these we will gladly give you some assistance with any specific problems you are having. Howver, we cannot explain the basic process of installing ppp any better than the actual developers did when they wrote the documentation, so we cannot help you until you've read the PPP-HOWTO.

  • How do I get my printer to work in Slackware 3.2?

    Make sure and download the latest service patch from our website, there were some reported problems with printing that this patch resolves. Also, if you are getting network error messages such as 'connection to lp@mabry.jackson failed - connection refused job' then you need to check your network configuration. You may want to download and install slackware-3.2/contrib/bsdlpr.tgz instead if you are still having difficulties.

  • What video card should I buy for XFree86?

    View the hardware compatibility list at http://www.xfree86.org to see what video cards will work with X. Xi Graphics and Metro Link sell commercial high performance X servers that support additional video cards that may or may not be supported by XFree86.

  • What's the difference between Slackware and Redhat?

    Linux is the name of an operating system kernel originally written by Linus Torvalds. A real operating system needs much more than just a kernel to do anything useful, so various companies and organizations have created Linux distributions based on the Linux kernel and free software from the internet (GNU,XFree86,etc..). Slackware has long been known as the most popular and up to date Linux distribution, but there are a few other very nice distributions. Red Hat offers lots of graphical configuration utilities not typically found in other distributions. While this is nice for novices, it's often difficult to fix any problems that arise since the tools tend to abstract users from the underlying operating system. Basically Slackware is more of a programmer or hacker's style distribution, while Red Hat is more of a simplistic-user's distribution. You can learn more about the differences between the two distributions by visiting our 'Operating Systems' web pages.


    FreeBSD


  • Is my hardware compatible with FreeBSD

    There is a hardware compatibility list in the FreeBSD handbook. You might also want to search the newsgroups for your particular hardware to see what other users have to say about its performance under FreeBSD.

  • How can I get PPP installed?

    There is an entire chapter in the FreeBSD handbook dedicated to getting PPP up and running. You should first try the 'user ppp' method. If you are unable to get that running for some reason, try the 'kernel ppp' method. If you still cannot get either version to work try to find the cause of the problem. Is the modem actually dialing? Can the modem dial out with other programs such as Minicom? We will be happy to try and help you get ppp running if you've completed the above steps and can give us some useful information that can help diagnose the problem. We unfortunately do not have the manpower to 'walk' everyone through ppp installation, especially since the documenation is so clear in this respect.

  • How to I get printing installed?

    There is an entire chapter in the FreeBSD handbook dedicated to setting up your printer with FreeBSD. This chapter is very straightforward, but if you still have questions we will be happy to help!

  • My book, The Complete FreeBSD, says to use atapi.flp, but I cannot find this file on my CDROM. Is it defective?

    The FreeBSD community moves so quickly that its almost impossible to keep up with all the latest changes in any form of printed documentation. The atapi.flp functionality was incorporated into boot.flp after version 2.1.5. All of the online documentation has been updated.

  • I can't find the FAQ or the Handbook on my FreeBSD 2.2.5 CD, where are they located?

    See CD #3, under the www directory for formatted versions. See CD #2, under the usr/doc directory for unformatted versions.

  • Lynx appears to be broken on my FreeBSD 2.2.5 CD, how do I fix it?

    If you have the ports collection installed, you can mount CD #4 on /cdrom, then go to /usr/ports/www/lynx and type 'make all install clean'. If you don't have the ports collection installed then you can type 'cp -r /cdrom/ports/www/lynx /var/tmp/lynx; cd /var/tmp/lynx; make all install clean' and the package will be compiled and installed for you.

  • I keep getting a 'login_getclass' error whenever I try to login/su to root with FreeBSD 2.2.2. The errata.txt file says that I need to simply copy the login.conf file to /etc, but the file isn't on the CD!

    Unfortunately we ran out of space on the CD and had to remove the directory it was in, but we forgot to update the errata.txt file. You can get the neccessary login.conf file here.

  • What are the advantages / disadvantages of FreeBSD and Linux? Which one should I buy?

    There are pros and cons for any operating system. In general it all depends on an individual's specific needs. FreeBSD is regarded as having superior networking, while Linux has a larger user base and more commercial software support. People will preach to you about which one is better and why, but the only way to make an intelligent decision is to try them both out and decide for yourself. The FreeBSD and Linux web pages should provide you with enough information to get you started, but an operating system's performance is hardly measured by the design of its web page, so ideally you should try them both and draw your own conclusions.


    Contacting Support

    If you still have a question not addressed above, please contact us. Email is the preferred method, as you can send us the exact error message(s) you are getting and we will have an easier time solving the problem.

    support@cdrom.com
    +1-510-603-1234 (M-F, 9am-5pm PST )