Dell Thinks Ubuntu Makes Hardware More Fragile? 380
WolfWings writes "Apparently Dell has decided that Ubuntu-based computers are ineligible for their famed CompleteCare service, or any form of hardware warranty what-so-ever. The news has only recently hit Dell's own IdeaStorm website, via a forum post describing an interaction with the company's customer service. Says the customer, 'I am looking for protection from bricks. The laws of physics do not differ from one OS to the other...do they?' After so recently decided to support Linux on their machines, including limited technical support, Dell seems to be squandering any possible good-will with this decision to leave purchasers of these machines high and dry for hardware warranty coverage." Update: 06/05 23:40 GMT by KD : many readers let us know that Dell has said that the omission of extended warranty and CompleteCare options from the configurator for Ubuntu systems was an "ordering system glitch." It should be fixed by now according to DesktopLinux.com.
Of course... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm the brick guy (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'm the brick guy (Score:4, Insightful)
Who wrote Dell's order system? It seems like anything that falls outside the realm of a "typical order" just gets kicked out with no notice to the customer.
A couple years ago, my wife and I ordered new computers for both of us. After a week of nothing, we called to find out the order exceeded some maximum dollar amount so it could not be processed. We had to re-order everything over the phone (listing off all the options while the customer service person keyed it into their system) as two separate orders.
My first question is why would the online system let me place an order that cannot be completed?
The second question is, why wouldn't someone contact me if my order is "stuck"?
Re:I'm the brick guy (with whitespace) (Score:4, Informative)
My guess at the whitespace (nothing has been modified except whitespace):
This is like my third post ever on slashdot. I read it often, though. I am the guy with the brick quote. Here is the whole story to be fair to Dell.
On Friday, my laptop died. It was an Acer. The screen was damaged. Replacement cost of cracked screen is more than halfway to the cost of a new laptop. So I decide I will support the new Ubuntu Dell Laptops. I go online to Dell's Website and go to the Ubuntu page. I choose the E1505n. I upgrade to a GB of Ram, I get the Nvidia 256 MB graphics card, I get the DVD burner optical drive. So far so good. I am happy with the default processor and the screen.
Now, another driving factor is that Dell has the nifty cool complete care (tm) plan. With this bad boy, a random brick can fly through the air, hit my laptop, shatter it to threads, and Dell will cover it. Think of it more as an insurance plan than a service plan. I have a friend with 3 kids who has had to take advantage of it not once, but twice. Both times Dell took care of them no questions asked. Now, the first time the Dell laptop had XP on it...the second time..gentoo. Still, no problems here. So, I decide to get it....just in case I get burned twice.
On June 2, I get an email telling me my order has been acknowledged and I will get another email shortly giving me a order number (I also paid for next day shipping). Well, the rest of June 2 and all of June 3 goes by. No new email. I check my spam folder...nada...just the usual assortment of male enhancement and refi deals.
So on June 4 I call Dell. They can see no order...they can see they debited my account...but no order. Hmmm...confusing. Very sorry, sir. Let me talk to my supervisor, please hold. She has no explanation for the lost order, but she will reprocess the order and I will get my next day shipping for free since I lost time. YAY! But wait! When we "build" my Dell, there is no longer a Complete Care (tm) plan for Ubuntu. She puts me on hold. She find out that my order was bumped out since they changed the policy on offering Complete Care (tm) on Ubuntu Dells. Why? She puts me on hold.
Now comes the fun.
"Sir, Ubuntu is a third party software and applications come from sources not from Dell."
"Vista is a product of Dell?"
"No sir, but we have a relationship with MS."
"So you do not have a relationship with Canonical, the commercial company that sponsors Ubuntu?"
"Hold.........Yes we do, but the software for other things comes from third parties."
"So what if I buy a game for a Vista laptop from Best Buy? As that is a third party software..does that invalidate a Complete Care (tm) policy?"
"No, sir."
"What if I download an update from Microsoft to keep my Vista Current, how does that differ from an update from Ubuntu other than the fact the Ubuntu update actually helps my system?"
"I do not know sir. See, sir, Linux comes from all over the place and as such cannot be supported."
"I believe Redhat and even Microsoft differ with that opinion. I am not looking for support, that is another option I can click on another screen in your website. I am looking for protection from bricks. The laws of physics do not differ from one OS to the other...do they?"
"No Sir."
"Talking to your superior will not help my cause, do you have the phone number and email address of an executive do you?"
She gave it to me. I wrote an email. I expressed my concerns politely and professionally.
The next day-early this morning, I got a reply from a Dell Representative named Todd. Todd wrote,
"Mr. Green, Thank you for your note and a chance to solve this issue. I am about to get on an airplane, but will get your issue to our executive resolution team. They should be able to resolve. If you are not satisfied, please do not hesitate to contact me again. Thank you for your business. Todd XXXXX"
I will be honest, I thought it was a passing of the hot potato.
However, earlier this m
Re:I'm the brick guy (Score:5, Insightful)
Good thing this isn't a news site otherwise they should've contacted Dell first to get their side of the sto......... Hey ! It says 'news for nerds'!!!
To all the people who are starting to shout at Dell in the rest of the thread : First people start bitchin' about Dell nog providing a Linux option.. Then Dell listens and acts in a relatively short time, and has not yet have everything 100% as it should be. And people start bitching here again. Cut 'm some slack will ya people? They are getting there. With a bad attitude, you'll have other companies think again before going the Linux way !
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Re:I'm the brick guy (Score:4, Informative)
That means, they never have any idea what OS you're running.
So, currently, even if the laws of physics do change while running Linux, Dell has no way to know what OS you're currently running.
I'm the Ubuntu Forums guy (Score:5, Informative)
Actually I work for Canonical full time at their global support centre. I also happen to volunteer in the forums and I saw this post in several places. I forwarded it internally to Canonical Staff and it's been passed to Dell.
Cheers,
Fabian Rodriguez
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FabianRodriguez [ubuntu.com]
Re:I'm the Ubuntu Forums guy (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I'm the brick guy (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Slash chucks out non-html breaks (Score:4, Informative)
See. This is on another line
And so is this.
Re:Slash chucks out non-html breaks (Score:4, Interesting)
That's nice. Except that Slashdot defaults to "HTML Formatted", not "Plain Old Text". For someone who has posted only two other times, they may not be aware of the formatting drop down menu, and would not necessarily know when to switch the formatting. Also, "Plain Old Text" mode isn't plain old text. It eats some html markup. The only way to see what happens is to Preview.
In my opinion, Slashdot should remove the Submit button from the post screen, and force everyone to preview.
Re:Slash chucks out non-html breaks (Score:4, Funny)
But, that would make it more difficult to get teh frist post!!!
Support (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes please check dmesg | grep ERROR. Try saying that to someone who doesnt know what a shell is.
Re:Support (Score:4, Interesting)
It would be a triviality to write a shell script that uses Zenity to present dialogs etc and which performs simple fault-finding operations, displays certain system files.
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Get off your asses Dell and be what you once were.
Re:Support (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Support (Score:5, Insightful)
We do Dell warranty service where I work and I have to say that they're not very good computers and other than price, I can't see why you would buy one. This Ubuntu ordeal is just more of the same bs customers have to put up with. On the other hand I wish customers would get it through their thick skulls that their data is not covered under warranty.
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Re:Support (Score:5, Insightful)
Dell, if you tell us the checks you want to have made, we will write the software for you. If you want our help though, then it needs to be a win-win situation, and you need to support the physical hardware you sell us.
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But it doesn't appear to be the problem they are having. It looks like they threw together this Linux stuff fast. Very little planning went into it. They're probably not prepared at this point in terms of infrastructure and training to do hardware support on another OS. Sure a diagnostic program would be helpful, but so would employee training.
I'm speculating that they might be testing this Linux offering too before they put too m
Re:Support (Score:5, Insightful)
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For Dell to hold out a warranty now, as you ask, Dell must have a way to diagnose hardware issues right now. Not later, when maybe someone can get around to writing some code, but right now. At this point, Dell is not prepared to do this.
Obviously.
However, the GPs point still holds. Dell doesn't yet understand the community process. If they did, they would be asking the community to provide the needed software, or, even better, assigning an engineer part time to build it, with an open development model and accepting contributions from interested developers around the world.
Then, as the necessary software support was in place for remote diagnostics, Dell could begin offering hardware support. I'm optimistic that Dell will get there,
Re:Support (Score:5, Interesting)
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I highly doubt you or any FOSS community member will be willing to do this (for free) especially when very few has even bought the machines. The Dell Resource CD that comes with every Dell clearly shows what checks are being done. They have been shipping that CD for years with Windows.
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I doubt it does. In fact, TFA claims that someone had a Dell computer with Gentoo installed, and used CompleteCare to get hardware fixed. So why the discrimination when you buy a computer preloaded with Ubuntu?
Mo
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Example:
After working for two years, my sound card on my XPS decided to stop working. Hardware problem or software problem?
Answer:
The Dell organization has an extensive structure for dealing with such quandaries. In my case it was simple Windows atrophy. Reinstalling the drivers solved the problem. With the speed with which Linux evolves, I suspect Dell is simply worried they won't be able to keep up with the pace of software changes.
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Only thing left to test would be the hard drive, which I'm sure there is stuff available to do.
Ian
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In response, it has overhauled its management team and focused on improving technical support for customers
I guess their claims for improving technical support for its customers is limited to Windows machines only. With the job cuts being done to save money (and keep them profitable after facing increased competition from HP and others), I guess they decided that expanding support to computers with Ubuntu installed isn't worth the time and effort (hiring personnel, training, etc).
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In other words, it's physically impossible to produce 100% accurate diagnostics purely in software.
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I'm gonna hafta say... give Dell a break for now. It's pretty cool that they've gone from the idea of offering Linux pre-installed to actually shipping it in just a couple of months. There are undoubtedly gonna be a few support issues to resolve. Let's see if this gets noticed and fixed before declaring that Dell has "squandered" all the goodwill that their innovative policy has created.
(Speaking as a guy who just bought his first Dell, and is very happy with it. I bought a Vista system, since I w
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Plus complete care shouldn't care. If the problem is that you can't run the diagnostics, run it over with your car. That's covered under complete care and they shouldn't expect you to be able to run diagnostics.
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That's easy.
"Ok Ma'am, what I'd like you to do is type this exactly how I say it, ok? Since we're in the command line, we can't use the mouse, we have to type right on into the screen where the cursor lays.
What we're going to do is we're going to type in a command that will display all the error messages that have come up since the most recent time you turned on your computer. The Debug Messages file holds all
Diagnostic Software? (Score:2)
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Because gods know that end-users never lie, or that you'd get an end-user who doesn't know what he's talking about.
Think from the other guy's perspective.
Give Dell *SOME* credit... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but it makes for a nice headline, eh? I think it more likely they believe their users will mis-identify software issues as hardware issues and request replacement hardware. Further, it would also cost them extra to have personell on hand (familiar enough with the OS) to help RESOLVE hardware issues. Either way, it costs them more.
It's not entirely unreasonable to charge more for a warranty coverage. It *IS* odd not to provide coverage at all, though.
But not because Dell denies that "The laws of physics do not differ from one OS to the other". That's just frustrated customer venting...
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Dell = service (Score:3, Insightful)
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How the hell can you have hardware issues when you make the PCs and put the OS on them yourself? Just add the support for your hardware to Ubuntu/the Linux kernel and ta dar, no more problems.
I mean Jesus.. how hard is it to only support hardware you know works?
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Just a thought, but is this an area that might be keeping Linus back in the consumer market? What has Lindows done about this sort of thing?
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Note that various states (or countrie
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Often the law requires some obligations, but mostly they don't require that the vendor specify to the customer what those legal rights are, which is why a lot of warranties (or notifications of lack of a warranty) have legal boilerplate that you may have other rights under law that the warranty (or lack thereof) should not be construed as denying.
Chris Mattern
The Masons! (Score:3, Funny)
I am looking for protection from bricks.
In that case, you should buy double protection for Windows machines. I've seen Windows brick far more machines than Linux.
Of course, we all know who is really behind this aversion to protection from bricks.
*cue Simpsons-style song and dance*
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i am interested in linux, but i am looking for protection from people throwing chairs. any ideas? xandros maybe?
No Techs (Score:4, Informative)
They really have no way to solve software issues, which makes it extremely difficult to determine whether an issue is a hardware or a software problem. So rather than retrain or recruit thousands of onsite techs, and pour millions of dollars into creating new Linux checklists for India, they would just assume offer only limited support.
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I have found that lots of Dell techs are only slightly more competent than "geek squad" level of techs. This changes when you go for server support. they actually fly out someone that knows what they are doing for those.
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I'm sorry, I'm going to have to interrupt you there and shout BOLLOCKS very loudly.
Solution: Bootable CD with diagnostic tools.
There, that wasn't so hard, was it?
Two possibilities come to mind... (Score:5, Insightful)
1.) Dell does not have the tools or expertise in house to do this yet, but will in the future. So, they got pressured into releasing their Linux PCs before they were ready to support them. Incompetence maybe, but not malice.
2.) Dell simply put out Linux PCs to shut the geek crowd up and get them to buy Dells. However, they don't really want to support Linux, so they designed the program to fail. This way, when they cancel this offering in a year or two due to poor sales, they can say they tried, but Linux on the desktop just doesn't work.
I want to believe it's reason 1, but the added fact that Dell doesn't seem to be advertising this thing at all, and the fact that you actually have to jump through some hoops on the website to even see that the option is available, makes me think that reason 2 isn't entirely impossible either.
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I suspect this is exactly what is happening. Likely some other OEM operating system manufacturer has viewed Linux as a threat to their monopoly, and has exerted some pressure on Dell to shut
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Dell has no illusions about selling Linux installed machines to regular users.
Re:Two possibilities come to mind... (Score:5, Informative)
866-622-1947
When I called it, the person that answered said they were the Dell Linux tech support group. So I think they DO have people in house to support Linux.
Not to excuse Dell, but maybe (Score:3, Interesting)
On a laptop? (Score:2)
things to swap out on one of these things. Some of the higher-end laptops might have interchangeable GPU cards
but typically, only the CPU (which is NOT recommended for the average user on a laptop- lots of screws and you
have to tear the silly thing totally apart in most cases...), the RAM (which is user serviceable anyhow...), the
HD (ditto...), and the CD or DVD drive (which is often user serviceab
Re:Not to excuse Dell, but maybe (Score:4, Interesting)
front remove a few parts and reseat the screen conection.
When I expressed surprise he said this was Dells standard troubleshhooting procedure.
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Doubt it (Score:2)
Besides, one could argue that Linux users are more likely to understand ESD and the like, and take proper precautions than some of the unwashed masses of Windows users.
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those.
We are a fickle group, aren't we. (Score:4, Insightful)
Admittedly, there are issues with not having any hardware warranty, but do we need to get so incendiary against someone who is trying to work with us?
This is slashdot, so, of course we're fickle. (Score:4, Interesting)
No, we're not... (Score:3, Insightful)
is most decidedly **NOT** working with us, thank you, very much.
I could have bought the same laptop he was buying but with Vista instead and burned the install down and been offered the option to buy
the hardware warranty- and it wouldn't have voided it upon my act. It's someone's bright idea over there at Dell because they probably
don't have the same testing/burn-in line for the Ubuntu laptops so th
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I'm not saying Dell is coming up roses here, but at least give them some time to work out the kinks in their systems.
People that pre-ordered Dells with Ubuntu are early adopters. And like all early adopters, they are going to hit the snags in the system.
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By telling you to reboot and hold down ctrl-alt-foo until the machine beeps and boots their troubleshooting utility from their hidden partition. If you wiped out the hidden partition, they'll tell you to restore it from the CD, or better yet, you'd have gotten a bootable CD [dell.com] with it that had the utilities on it.
It's one thing to tell you that if you made any changes you have voided your warranty, it's another not to give you a warranty i
Re:We are a fickle group, aren't we. (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially when, this being Slashdot, everything gets overblown.
These machines come with a hardware warranty.
They don't come with the ability to purchase an extended warranty.
Now, this makes some sense. Loading Dells with Linux is a trial thing. This is not something they want to figure out how to support long-term yet; if this doesn't work for them, having four and five year service contracts out there they have to cover is going to make this a very expensive prospect. They're willing to make sure they have Linux expertise around to support these things for their base warranty time, whether or not it turns out they can make a buck selling Linux systems long-term. But it makes sense that they wouldn't want to keep Linux geeks around (which, let's face it, cost more than Windows monkeys) long term if they can't sell these things long-term.
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Yes. It isn't about the specific details, it is the attitude. They aren't treating Linux users like customers expect to be treated.
Some extra hoops because their support org isn't up to speed is understandable, especially if they are nice about it and explain what is going on. But refusing coverage without a drastic price cut (after sales support is a BIG chunk of the sticker price) just doesn't
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Perhaps not from Dell (Score:2)
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FUD (Score:3, Interesting)
Cust svce. Can you reboot, etc., etc., etc.
Me... Sure why not... yadda yadda
Cust svce. Can you click on the start menu
Me No. I don't use Windows
Cust svce. Please hold...
Cust svce. Are you using OSX?
Me No. I use Solaris (Sun Desktop [infiltrated.net] on a Dull unInspiron 6000)
Cust svce. Please hold...
Cust svce. (supervisor gets on now) Can you please click on the start menu...
Me No. I told the other person I use Solaris...
Cust svce. Well we don't support Solaris!
Solaris nor OSX nor Windows nor BSD had anything to do with their cruddy connectivity. The actual conversation took a little longer than that with more e-stupidity from their customer service and I had to pretty much deal with it to a degree... My options? 1) Find a provider who would support/understand basic networking, etc. 2) Deal with it...
This is what happened summarily, so I can see why dull would become filled with uber non Windows FUD. Imagine having to explain to Alibaba
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If you've already know what the problem is you should have an easy time fabricating the results of whatever inane tasks they are required to ask you to perform.
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Many many and I mean many moms and grandmas call in with spyware all angry that their hardware is not working right and can not differientate the difference between the 2.
I tried doing the path of using logic rather than a sheet of checklists to solve problems. I always end up using more handle time on the phones and getting in trouble.
For example your computer is running slow hmmm 8 out of 10 times i
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I'd rather just not be incompetent and fend for myself than brandish meaningless credentials...
Tom
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And really what we need aren't more security testers than developers, we need
The economies of support (Score:2)
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Me: I need the IP addresses of your DNS servers.
Tier 1: You have a dynamic IP address, it will change every time.
Me: I understand that. I am not insterested in my IP address. I need the IP addresses of your DNS servers.
Tier 1: Sir, when your modem connects to us, it automatically grants you an IP address.
(repeat for a few minutes)
Me: Ma'am, I'm an IT professional. If you
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All they are going to do is ask you to tell them the ifconfig/ route and possibly ping times. you can do all that from solaris, simply make them feel good by lying.
I had to do it all the time with comcast, or I would get the "Our service does not work with linux or solaris."
you have to remember that the tech support people really know nothing at all. they are reading a script and comparing your answers to the on screen multiple choice. if you deviate fr
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They're obviously going to want information like the output of a ping, or your IP address, or your MAC address. If you're too clueless[1] to figure out how to get that information to them, you shouldn't be blaming them.
[1] From your post, it sounds more like you're an arrogant ass.
This may also come down to their profit margain/MS (Score:2, Insightful)
Supporting Windows is hard enough (Score:2)
Linux and Unix professionals often earn more.
Bootable diag anyone? (Score:2, Insightful)
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They do not provide images of these CDs, you get one when your system arrives, and if you ever lose it Dell charges you for another one if you ever really need it.
(Incidentally, I've been running Linux on my Dell laptop for several years, and I've had problems sometimes getting them to ship the correct replacement part, but never on the part of anyon
I wouldn't get upset just yet (Score:4, Interesting)
For those not going to read the attached article (or who didn't the first time around), in the end the phone rep was mistaken and misunderstood the policy and HP handled the hardware repair under warranty.
warranty != support (Score:2)
I would understand completely if Dell did not have staff trained to diagnose hardware failures on Linux. That is support. But if my keyboard doesn't work, and another keyboard does, Dell should accept an RMA on the keyboard. That's a warranty. I picked that example because it is easy, but it applies to anything. If I determine the hard drive is bad, or I take it to a store and they conclude that, then Dell should allow me to RMA t
The 6 stages of every project. (Score:5, Insightful)
4.) The search for the guilty.
See, in a corporate world, Windows servers and Windows workstations are used for one simple reason. When something goes wrong, they know who to take to court. They know who to blame. They know who to call on the phone at 3 AM and work all night trying to solve a critical server process that likes to eat memory or crash.
Now, seeing as how applications exist that can modify hardware (read: brick it) then something tells me that Dell isn't going to warantee a mainboard when they can't call up and say "Hey, that patch you released bricked our onboard sound chip / video / lan / cdrom firmware."
For those of you interested, the 6 stages of every project are as follows:
1.) Enthusiasm.
2.) Disillusionment.
3.) Panic.
4.) The Search For The Guilty.
5.) The Punishment of the Innocent.
6.) Accolades for the Non-Participants.
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How are you going to take anyone to court after you agreed to an EULA that absolves them of responsibility?
Re:The 6 stages of every project. (Score:4, Interesting)
If they "know" all that, they're delusional. Can you point out a single case where someone has successfully sued Microsoft because something went wrong? Having someone to call at 3 AM who can and will help you troubleshoot your problems is a good reason, but you don't get it just by buying commercial software, you have to buy a very expensive support contract, something you can just as easily do for Linux software as for Windows software.
This is an old, old argument in favor of closed-source software, but it doesn't hold any water, and never has.
Facts? (Score:2, Insightful)
You don't get this...? (Score:2, Informative)
According to papers the Attorney General filed in court, Dell deprived consumers of the technical support to which they were entitled under their warranty or service contract by:
source [state.ny.us]
Two obvious observations [assuming the lawsuit's accurate]:
You have to agree (Score:2)
I think it also has to do with their call support system. Once I broke my laptop screen, it was really broken with pixels leaking everywhere... yet, when I called they made me jump through a lot of hoops to make sure I didn't mess my windows settings... I played along pretending to click. Halas, I guess the procedure makes sense for most of the callers.
Well it's clearly MS strongarming (Score:2)
3 good business reasons (Score:4, Informative)
2. Yes, linux drivers can crash hardware. I crashed my nikon film scanner using a beta SANE driver. Read the warning; chose to ignore it, drove the scan head off the end of the screw. $2000 broken toy. This was a few years ago, so may not be true anymore.
3. Dell would prefer to be seen as more friendly towards windows. If they say, in effect, "We support PCs with windows. We'll sell you a PC and even preload a GNU distro, but that's strictly your responsibility", they're keeping a major supplier happy.
Hey, they're good *business* reasons.
They may not coincide with your personal ideology, but why should they?
Warranty on Dell Ubuntu Systems Coming Back Soon (Score:4, Informative)
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Dell can't really wriggle out of this. The most they can do is to try and get away with flaunting the law.
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Are you having a bad day?
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