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 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

  • QRZ Ham Radio
    - database folder
    - birthdates
  • 2000 True Type Fonts
    - font name lookup
  • GNU Software
    - solaris installation
  • Linux
    - booting problems
    - linux unleashed
    - hardware compatibility
    - ppp configuration
    - printer configuration
  • FreeBSD
    - booting problems
    - hardware compatibility
    - ppp configuration
    - printer configuration


    QRZ Ham Radio Callsign Database CD-ROM


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

    The install script calls a little helper-script named "copyit". Even though copyit is in the same directory as the install script, you'll get error messages saying that it couldn't be found.

    Why? On some systems, you have to invoke the copyit script by actually running "./copyit" instead of just "copyit" by itself. Since the install scripts use "copyit" (and not "./copyit"), you might have some problems. You can't modify the script and change the reference to "./copyit" because you wouldn't be able to save the changes (CDROM not writable issues).

    About the easiest way that I've seen to work around the problem is to temporarily add the installation directory to your path. The directory to add would look something like /mnt/gnu_199702/solaris/bin, thought this varies greatly from system to system. If you don't know how to add a directory to your path, try typing "man tcsh" or look at the documentation for the shell you are using.

    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.

  • 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.


    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.


    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 )