the discs

A copy nobody can take back

Everyone who comes gets a disc. Full, installable Linux, pressed onto write once media, free, yours to keep or copy or hand to someone else.

printed on every sleeve


      $
      sha256sum linuxmint-22-cinnamon.iso
    

      $
      c1f0...ae43  linuxmint-22-cinnamon.iso
    

      $
      checksums are printed on the sleeve. verify the disc before you trust it.
    

      $

Why write once media, in 2026

DVD-R and CD-R can be written to exactly once. After that the disc is physically finished. There is no update channel, no license check, no server that has to still exist, and no way for anyone to reach in and change what is on it. Not the project that made the software, not the university, not us.

Compare that with how most software arrives now. It is streamed to you, it updates itself, and the terms under which you use it can change on a Tuesday. Books have been removed from devices people bought them on. Games have stopped working because a server was switched off. Files people made themselves have become unreadable without a live subscription.

A disc in a drawer answers all of that by being dumb and permanent. In ten years it installs the same system it installs today. That is the whole argument of this festival in an object you can hold, which is why we press them instead of handing out a download link.

You can check we are honest

Every sleeve has the checksum of the image printed on it, which is a fingerprint of the file. Run the command on the sleeve and if the numbers match, the disc holds exactly what the Linux project published, unmodified.

[photograph needed] The discs with their printed sleeves, checksum visible. Square, 1000 by 1000, WebP.

how to get one

Come to the festival and take one from the table. That is the whole process.
One disc per person while they last. Register so we press enough. confirm
Not sure which one you want? Try them at the tasting bar first and the table will match the disc to the machine you brought.
Copying the disc and giving it away is allowed and encouraged. That is what the license is for.

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Five discs, each doing a different job. Versions are the current stable release at pressing time. [confirm final disc list and versions]

start heredvd-r

Linux Mint, Cinnamon

The one we hand to most people. Familiar layout, everything works out of the box, and it plays video and music without you installing anything extra.

live and installable

for older machinescd-r

Lubuntu

Built to be light. This is the disc for a machine with 4GB of memory or less, and the one that surprises people most when a laptop they wrote off becomes usable again.

fits on a cd

current and fast movingdvd-r

Fedora Workstation

Newer software than Mint, updated more often, closer to how Linux is being developed right now. A reasonable second install once you are comfortable.

live and installable

for serverscd-r

Debian, network install

Small, plain and extremely stable. This is what most people end up running on the machine at home that quietly holds their files.

needs a wired connection

rescue kitcd-r

Tools and rescue

For fixing rather than installing. Copy a whole disk, resize a partition, test memory, recover files from a machine that will not start. Worth keeping in a drawer even if you never install Linux.

gparted · clonezilla · memtest