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HP to give 24/7 support for Linux 54

Posted by CmdrTaco from the welcome-to-the-mainstream dept.
tomsky sent us more good news from the world of Commercial Support for Linux. Hewlett-Packard Company today announced the availability of HP Linux support services. Another source of 24/7 support for Linux, from another long term player no less.
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HP to give 24/7 support for Linux More

HP to give 24/7 support for Linux

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  • Home PC (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Wel, personally I am a technical user, but I setup everybody at home with Linux machines, all running Redhat 5.2. All the machines run KDE 1.1 and are networked together and there is another machine acting as an internet gateway/NIS server which is connected to the internet via cable modem.

    Total is 4 machines, and since I got it running, have not gotten a call or single complaint from anyone. They use the machines for email/web browsing, word processing, and my little brother plays Quake2 on his machine.

    My decision to do this with Linux as opposed to
    Windoze was mainly cost (my brother had his machine already, I used a P133 and P166 that were basically sitting in my closet at home unused) so the total cost was ~300CDN (NIC/Software/old 486 machine to work as server). the other thing was ease of use. It makes little difference to me whether I setup a Linux or NT based network, but for them, it means they can't do anything they should not, and they don't have to worry about stuff not working).

    I think that the argument that there is a lack of software is not entirely true for Linux. I mean, yes, if you define software to include games and MS apps, but if your needs are basic home productivity and internet apps, I really don't see what the big deal is. My mother was actually happy to use Word Perfect becuase that's what they use at work.

    The best thing of all is that I bought 1 copy of the RH 5.2 install, and I have 4 machines running a multitude of software, with absolutly no lisencing infringements (I challenge most home users to prove they actually have legal lisences for their computers and ALL software if the home is running windows.)
  • According to News.com, HP's pricing is basically $100-$130 per computer per month. This is for 7 days/24 hours troubleshooting support w/ 2 hour response. They only support selected hardware configurations though. They will also have a freely accesable knowledge base for Linux troubleshooting issues.
  • Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:

    I propose we start asking our MS-centric coworkers and friends where they get THEIR support. When they say "Microsoft", we can say "OK, but what if you can't get through, or they don't know or it's too expensive? Maybe you should use Linux, where even the tech support has a multiplicity of options."
  • Posted by Mike@ABC:

    I bet this will help a lot of skittish businesses adopt Linux in the short term. And it helps toast all those pesky arguments about how Linux supposedly has no tech support.

    Not to mention that all of these companies creating support networks will be hiring...!

  • Pshaw! (Score:1)

    by C.Lee ( 1190 )
    And people are actually taking talk of Win2000 support seriously?
  • This looks to be much better support than most technical support I've seen so far. They even say two-hour response-time commitment and immediate response for critical calls.

    I've had excellent dealings with HP's support. I had an HP-UX workstation at my last job. When I ordered it, I forgot to tell them to put some software on it (the X development libraries to be exact). I called them and asked them how to get them, they overnight FedEx'ed me a DAT tape with them. It was my mistake and they went out of their way to fix it. That's service.

    It doesn't say how much the support will cost. The press release implies that the service is available right now ("...today announced the availability of HP Linux support services...").

    Things are getting more and more interesting by the day in Linux land. If you told me seven years ago when I started using Linux that things would end up like this, I'd never have believed you... :-)
  • With big players like HP now actually throwing their weight behind linux, how long will it be before there's a HP-Linux OEM Package for the servers and workstations. I wonder if all of the Linux hype that's been based mostly around RedHat's distro of Linux is going to lead for more companies going the way of Corel and packaging their own distribution based on the RedHat folks software. My biggest hope is that this will help port Linux to HP-UX RISC boxes (to the best of my knowledge it isn't yet).
  • SUN may not be a company that is open source, but for the most part, it uses open standards, and open archetecture. SUN is much more of a hacker-type mentality company than SGI, IBM, and other would ever be. SUN's creator wanted a relatively inexpensive yet still powerful computer to use at home so that he wouldn't have to go to the Universities labs all the time to work on programming projects. He was to use the phrase "scratching an itch" that he felt needed to be scratched. All SUN hardware has and always will be open, and their code is obtainable without excessive cost.

    Overall, I think that SUN has been an important contributer to open systems, and powerful systems overall.

    Just my $1.19

  • Hahahahah....I couldn't agree more. :-) When all of us "Management Types" get together where I work, bonuses & pay scales are always a topic of conversation. "Woa...can you believe I get a 20% bonus for doing this job?" The dicksizing never stops. ;-)

    -Rev. Randy

  • No where is it said that FUD is the truth, it's just that it's presented in such a way that it appears that it could be the truth.

    Standard FUD against OS/2 is that there are no applications for it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sure there may be fewer of each type of application when compared to what's available for windows, but there are applications. And as we all know, quantity does not equate to quality. The OS/2 Alternative [tstonramp.com] site maintains a list of various Windows programs and the OS/2 equivalents.

  • Well done HP!

    You listen to your customers!

    I am a sysadmin for global company, and we have taken to using HP products quite a lot. The HP machines that I have set Linux to run on work -brilliantly- and totally flawlessly. HP hardware is some of the best of the best and this move by them is the best thing they could have done for their business.

    HP hardware has always been solid, stable and professionally built.

    I'm gonna be buying a LOT of their kit for my server room now :)

    /me goes nuts

    YEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) :) :)

  • price? (Score:1)

    by chrome ( 3506 )
    Use the ad1816 module. Works perfectly. Cant get midi to work though :)

    /sbin/modprobe ad1816 io=0x530 irq=5 dma=1 dma2=3 ad1816_clockfreq=33000

    Works for me. I have a HP-XAs PII450.

    Mail me if you have any problems. Take out the nospam/spamsucks in my email address to get the right one.

    chrome.
  • Does anyone have info about how many PC owners (non-technical) are using Linux in their homes? I feel that is the final step towards TWD.

    CP
  • So now I can get "official" support for my HP Netserver LD Pro (RH 5.2, kernel 2.2.5, Squid 2.1.PATCH2). That should reassure some of the bosses around here.

    The bosses were a little nervous about letting me test Linux/Squid in place of our NT/IIS proxy solution. But after two weeks of testing, I put our NT machine back in place. Three days later I received a mandate to fdisk the NT server and put Linux into production. I like the bosses. :-)

    Thank you, HP, for coming on-board with the official support.


  • While I realize universities have been running *NIX for ages, most high schools and such don't. I was talking to the computer science teacher at my school recently and basically the one reason the district has been slow to adopt Linux (even though the current alternative is some crippled windows 3.1 compiler for the CS classes which doesn't include alot of core functionality needed for the class) is because of the lack of support. Maybe now that big names are getting into the Linux support business more schools will stop letting these petty problems stand in the way of what is best solution for the school and the students...
  • Just to remind everyone, IBM already provides both Linux support and training. See http://www.ibm.com/linux

  • Excellent!

    24/7 Linux tech support, with guaranteed response times, from a reputable "name" like Hewlett Packard is certainly good news. It should ease the greater use of Linux in the corporate world.

    And as a side benefit, this blows a great big hole in the FUDmeisters' case against Linux as an OS suitable for business.

  • The news is good but at least in Mexico HP has one
    of the worst technical support team.

    I'm only speaking on my own experience. they usually know nothing about the problem I bring to them, they usually hang up the phone in the middle of a conversation and they usually disapear when calling again.

    To tell you the truth I dont know if this has changed because long time ago I made up my mind not to work with HP and if somebody has HP hardware, then to try to solve the problem alone.
  • I didn't see anything about price for this service. I sure would like to make the
    soundcard that came with my kayak-xa work.
  • cool info! thanks. i'm going to make much
    of being able to monitor that stuff!!! (to my boss) (so he'll buy us more 450's!!!)
  • Our Linux cluster research project at CERN has been sponsored by HP for quite some time. The project is described at http://hp-linux.cern.ch/. One of the spin-offs of this project is the HP PC Linux support table and the development of the MaxiLife driver for the Kayak PC health monitoring system (driver now part of the lm_sensors code, http://www.netroedge.com/~lm78/).

  • price? (Score:1)

    by rdm ( 9618 )
    For any drivers for HP PC's see http://hp-linux.cern.ch/SupportTable.html.
    Also if you would like to monitor the fan speeds,
    temperatures and voltages of your Kayak, download the latest version of the lm_sensors kernel modules from http://www.netroedge.com/~lm78/. In the lastest CVS version there is now a driver for the Kayak MaxiLife health monitoring system.
  • "anticipated strong demand for Linux systems, software and services. " Yeah! Hopefully they'll be experts on, say, printer support - I use an inexpensive HP540 inkjet on FreeBSD w/ Ghostscript and Samba for printing from WinNT desks; real sweet. :))

    Today's M$ stupid moment: having to kick everyone off or wait until afterhours to reboot a critical NT server, just because a new modem was plugged in. Stupid, stupid, stupid....

    Chuck
  • "anticipated strong demand for Linux systems, software and services. " Yeah! Hopefully they'll be experts on, say, printer support - I use an inexpensive HP540 inkjet on FreeBSD w/ Ghostscript and Samba for printing from WinNT desks; real sweet. :))

    Today's M$ stupid moment: having to kick everyone off or wait until afterhours to reboot a critical NT server, just because a new modem was plugged in. Stupid, stupid, stupid.... :((

    Chuck
  • Does anybody know where they are going to have their linux support center? I didn't find any job postings for linux positions on their web site, which is a bit suspicious. Are they going to outsource this?
  • Like as not, he plugged in an external serial modem (yes, those _do_ still exist... and have distinct advantages over the internal variety).

    For that, you would not necessarily need to reboot Linsux (setserial will fix this up for you, I think... not terribly sure any more).

    --Corey
  • Remember, IS managers don't care about Open Source, or proprietary systems, or monopoly, or The Right Thing. They care about reliability, scalability, data integrity, and uptime.

    Which means the LAST products they should consider using are any OS products from Microsoft!

    It all comes down to image and marketing, not reality.

    And, I agree, for HP to put a commitment behind Linux is fantastic for Linux's image in the mind of the typical IS manager.
  • I've been doing this kind of thing for years.

    I simply ask a Microsoft worshipper, "when you call Microsoft for tech-support, how often are you satisfied with the result?"

    Of course, the answer is never better than "seldom", and is typcially "never."

    However, big names like HP offering Linux 24/7 support is a good thing for Linux acceptance.

    A 24/7 support system is a mandatory feature in the minds of many (heck, most) pointy-haired manager types, even if the people actually having to keep the systems running know the 24/7 support is worthless or nearly so.

    24/7 from "big" names like HP will help Linux get accepted by the pointy-hairs. No doubt about it.
  • Any one know what HP divison will do the support?
  • Well, HP claims to be a big supporter of Linux, but they won't even release their propierty code for their printers (such as the 720 series) so they will work under linux. They won't even release them to developers.

  • HP may be reputable but in many ways their tech support leaves something to be desired.

    I have been having problems with one of their CD-R drives. When I called tech support my support consisted of the person reading (you could tell from the way they were listing things) a list of possible causes. After listing everything from the power supply in the system to the cable, SCSI card, drivers, software they added "well it could also be the drive". They then informed me that I could send it back and, for almost the price of a new one, exchange it for a refurbished unit as they did no testing on returned drives but simply swapped them.

    I can figure out the list of what might be the problem all by myself. What I need when I call tech support is some in depth informed help, not someone reading a list of possibilites off a screen.

    I sure hope they do Linux tech support better than that or there will be a lot of unhappy computer users which can only hurt the acceptance of Linux.

  • That's pretty interesting stuff. Some good reasons behind the use of Linux too.
  • I do! And I know of another 10 in same city who do! We are all students. However NONE of us has taken Linux because it's free. We all bought Windows95 CDS and then went and bought either RedHat official box (my case and another's) or Infomagic CD set to try out everything.

  • This is exactly what the suits have been asking for. Red Hat and Pacific Hi-Tech can talk all they want, but when a major player like HP has the coporate credibility of billions in sales and decades in the industry. When HP steps up and says they will keep the SAP server running, IS managers relax. They go out, play a round of golf, have a few beers, maybe go to a movie. Remember, IS managers don't care about Open Source, or proprietary systems, or monopoly, or The Right Thing. They care about reliability, scalability, data integrity, and uptime.

    Frankly, I'm surprised they could pull it off. I work in an HP shop, and believe me, it's almost impossible for HP to move this fast on ANYTHING. HP will be a big player in Linux for the forseeable future, if only because several layers of management must have staked their entire careers on this move.

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