[TriLUG] OT: Retail SharksoI

[Timothy A. Chagnon]

Actually, my experience with Intrex has been right along these lines. 
Last fall my motherboard and p/s got fried, but I didn't know whether it
was the video card, memory, cpu, mobo, p/s or  something else.  It just
wouldn't boot, and I don't have all those extra parts laying around to
swap out.  Intrex happily did this for my for $30, then told me my Intel
board was still under warranty and I should send it back.  I made out
for only $30 labor and $30 p/s.

Of course, this was a simple boot/no boot problem, no need to log in. 
But they at least understood that and didn't give me the standard "we
don't support Linux" line when I brought it to them.  

As far as getting them to actually support Linux as an OS, I don't think
a small retail shop like that could afford to pay a Linux employee just
for the occasional Linux customer.  The best thing they could do is just
keep themselves aware of the Hardware Compatibility lists and try to
keep at least one model for each piece of hardware that's stable on
Linux.  Part of being a Linux user is knowing what hardware has kernel
support and what doesn't.  Even if they _did_ do it, I don't think I'd
pay anyone to recompile my kernel.

-Tim

On Thu, 2004-04-22 at 06:50, Aaron S. Joyner wrote:
> Intrex will gladly sell you a PC with no OS.  They will gladly support 
> that hardware until the warranty expires (with the optional extension, 
> that's pronounced "until the end of time").  Of course, they won't 
> install drivers for you under linux, recompile your kernel to add 
> support for the latest hoopskirt attachment, etc - but they should 
> gladly install that hoopskirt attachment, and ensure that it physically 
> works for you.  Testing it thoroughly might be a little tricky (they'd 
> have to throw in another hard drive temporarily, drop windows on it, 
> test the widget, and then swap the drives back), but they should be able 
> to do that for most hardware.  I could believe that they might not go to 
> that trouble when first installing new hardware into your machine that 
> has been otherwise working, unless you brought the hardware back saying 
> that it particularly had a problem.  But at that point they should 
> certainly be able to verify that the hardware is working properly and 
> narrow it down to the fact that you have a problem with your Linux setup.
> 
> Have you had experience that would suggest otherwise?
> 
> Aaron J.
-- 
Timothy A. Chagnon <tchagnon at nc.rr.com>
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