Re: Dell & Linux: any problems ?

[John Seebach <jseebach@example.com>]

On Mon, Jan 29, 2001 at 09:10:20AM -0600, s-luppescu@example.com wrote:
> On 28-Jan-2001 Michael Engel wrote:
> > I hope you survived last weekend's snow chaos (first time in 7 years here in
> > Chiba that there was so much snow).
> > 
> > Does anybody use a Dell computer with Linux OS ?
> > http://www.dell.com/jp/jpn/dhs/products/spec_dimen_900_desktops.htm

I have a Latitude CPi laptop (300mhz PII); everything works
beautifully, the only exception being the sound card (a cs4236, like
Stuart's), which took a lot of agony and finally a quick-and-dirty
patch to the driver in the kernel source. 

The quality of the hardware leaves something to be desired, though.
I've had a keyboard stop responding and a motherboard flat-out give
up the ghost.

Dell's tech support in Japan was very helpful (albeit a little
expensive since I lived in inaka and the warranty doesn't include
labor or the cost of dispatching a Dell-authorized technician to your
house. 

Dell's tech support back in the USA was abysmal, and definitely not
Linux-friendly. It took me 5 or 6 calls and 3 or 4 weeks to get my
problem resolved, and most of those calls were spent trying to
convince the technician that the lockups were hardware-related, and
had nothing to do with the fact that the machine was running Linux.
Actual quote from one 20-30 minutes into one conversation:

Me: "I have removed the hard disk from the system, and am booting it
from a DOS-formatted floppy disk."

Tech: "And?"

Me: "Same thing. It locks up immediately after booting and dies."

Tech: "I see. Well, I'm pretty sure that this is because you
installed Linux. You need to wipe the hard disk and reinstall with
Windows."

Me: "The hard disk is now lying on my floor. There is nothing
attached to the computer that is the least bit Linux-related. The
symptoms are exactly the same, whether booting from floppy or from
hard disk.  Aren't you in the least bit suspicious that this might be
a hardware-related problem?"

Tech: "No. Linux could have left something in an improperly
configured state." 

(?!)

Caveat Emptor,

John

-- 
john seebach           ~   "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were
jseebach@example.com  ~   a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."
                       ~   -- Mark Twain
--