[TriLUG] Re: OT: Dial-Up ISP

[Jeremy Portzer]

I'm not trying to defend RR here, but why did you tell them you were
using Linux?  It wasn't relevant to your problem.  Just use a "don't
ask, don't tell" policy and you should have no problem getting support
(for the network).

--Jeremy

On Mon, 2004-05-10 at 11:42, Ken Mink wrote:
> Hey Ben,
>     I completely understand your point of view about supporting Linux. I 
> don't expect RR to support Linux. The number of distros and the number 
> of version in each distro make that unreasonable.
>      However, I expect an ISP to support their network. I called RR 
> support because my connection was down. I mean the lights were on on 
> the modem, but I could not ping out. Once I said that I was running 
> Linux, the support drone stated that they did not support Linux and 
> could not  help me. When I pushed that I wanted support of the network 
> not my machine, the drone held the corporate line and eventually hung 
> up on me. I did get kind of hot, but never swore nor was I abusive. I 
> was really pissed off at that point. That is Linux UNFRIENDLY.
>      I have never expected an ISP to support my Linux machine. ISPs 
> provide network connectivity and I expect then to support their 
> network. A network does not, or rather should not, depend on the 
> machine I'm using. Simply supporting the network connection regardless 
> of the OS of the client would be Linux friendly enough for me.
> 
> Ken
> 
> 
> On May 8, 2004, at 1:31 PM, Ben Pitzer wrote:
> 
> > Mike,
> >
> > Well, take it from a career ISP man:  If you have enough customers to 
> > keep
> > yourself in business, it's not practical to support every possible 
> > piece of
> > software that they might be running.  Fact is, there are half a dozen
> > different modem dialers for Linux.  Add to that the different modems 
> > that
> > Linux might or might not support, 50 different distros, and the fact 
> > that
> > two people running the same distro might have boxes that look 
> > completely
> > different from one another, and you've got a support quagmire that's 
> > just
> > ridiculous.  You can't support Linux in a cost-effective manner (as an 
> > ISP,
> <SNIP>
> ---------------------------------------------
> "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
> safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."--Benjamin Franklin
> " 'Necessity' is the plea for every infringement of human liberty; it
> is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."--William Pitt
-- 
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| Jeremy Portzer        jeremyp at pobox.com      trilug.org/~jeremy     |
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