-----Original Message-----
From: Chris "Cranky Spice" Harshman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Wednesday, May 06, 1998 2:58 PM
Subject: Re: Linux on Dell PCs (fwd)
>It's the same story today with Windows and mass market retailers.
>They (Packard Bell, Compaq, Acer, HP, etc) don't support Win95.
>They a) reflect those calls to Microsoft or b) have the customer run the
>computer manufacturer's "Restore" CD, which wipes out the hard drive
>(reformat) and rebuilds it just as it was when it left the factory floor.
>End of committment. Compaq, for one, provides lifetime hardware support,
>but support for the software they preload is a $45/call techsupport item.
I don't think you're correct. They're required to be the primary support
point for the OS in the licensing for the OEM version.
They may provide crappy support, but they do have to provide support.
>electronics chain.) I for one would be content with Dell supporting their
>hardware (and providing the necessary details to aid in configuring
>various aspects of Linux to work with it), and referring tech support to
>the newsgroups or to RedHat (assuming it was a RedHat installation they
>put on the machines).
I obviously am happy with that, or I wouldn't be a Redhat user, but if they
just do that it still causes us problems in measurable terms.
If PC makers won't support Linux to at least the "drivers for all the
hardware are on the website, and any gotchas in the installation are
documented" level, then hardware support is a crapshoot. Manufacturers
don't care about whether their peripherals work with Linux, and that won't
change until there's a mass market for Linux-friendly peripherals.
And *THAT* won't happen until some of the things we've been talking about in
these very important threads that a few people are trying to call
"off-topic".
The installation procedures need bullet-proofing. Hardware support needs to
be less of a crap-shoot.
Installations need to have fewer of these weird gotchas that require
specialized knowledge. The average person can't be expected to know what
the hell gated is, much less why it's frying his PPP connections. All he
knows is that Windows 95 has a nice pretty GUI interface PPP setup that
handholds him onto the 'net.
And he also knows that if he walks into the store and randomly picks the
latest-and-greatest piece of hardware, it's probably going to work on his
system, and if he doesn't he can call a toll-free number and talk to
somebody who knows where to poke and prod (or at least can read a database
that says where to poke and prod) to coax it into life.
Sure, Windows 95 sucks. But so does Linux. It just sucks in a different
place.
My hypothesis is that if you start from a stable foundation and build toward
Joe Sixpack, you're going to end up with a better platform than if you start
with Joe Sixpack and build toward stability.
The problem is that Linux isn't getting there fast enough. Actually, that's
not really the problem, Linux is fine where it is. The real problem is that
people are trying to CLAIM it's at Joe Sixpack's level, and it's not.
But a secondary problem is the hardware support crapshoot, and it'd sure go
a long way toward solving that if somebody who makes decent mass market
boxes (Dell, Gateway, HP, IBM, Micron, hell even Quantex) would support
Linux.
Just *ONE* of them. That'd at least give you one place where you could go
"buy these, and at least they'll support Linux".
I hate Dell, and I don't do business with the jerks, but it'd do me
MEASUREABLE good if they came out with a Linux distribution of their own,
offered it preloaded on their systems, and had *EVEN ONE* tech support guy
who knew Linux from shinola on an OFFICIAL basis. Even if I never used him,
and never bought another Dell, and never installed Dell Linux, it'd still
mean that I could know that I could refer people there. And I'd know that
any manufacturer of PCI Widget Adapters would have to decide "support Linux,
or guarantee I never get a Dell contract."
Yeah, I know it didn't work for OS/2, but I blame IBM for that, not the PC
makers.
And for a while, most video boards had OS/2 drivers available. So did NICs,
and lots of other neat hardware. It teetered just on this side of working,
for a long time.
I think Linux is just enough more kick-ass than OS/2 to have a shot, if it
had the right support.
I just wish Linus would win a few hundred million bucks in the lottery. :-)
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