Appreciate the good guys. was Re: [Gllug] Linux invalidates your HP warranty

[Chris Jones]

Hi

- Tethys wrote:
> By what logic do you link declining the license and being unsupported?

Don't confuse "unsupported" with "invalid warranty". As with the case
that spawned this thread, HP were perfectly willing to service the
laptop if it was sent to them in a supported configuration.
Clearly they couldn't require Windows if the hard disk exploded - they
would still service the laptop even if you'd clicked Do Not Accept.

Just this afternoon my desktop machine stopped seeing/sending any
ethernet packets. It could easily be a hardware fault, but it's almost
certainly the crappy driver. If the machine isn't certified and
supported under Linux, I can't prove to a vendor that they should incur
cost to fix what is almost certainly my fault.

> They can. As has been mentioned several times now, the obvious ways of
> doing that are to boot from a CD or from the network. Yes, running the

Obvious, but irrelevant. Booting from a CD or the network changes the
machine - you're validating the laptop's ability to be a CD/network
based diagnostic machine. Suppose the disk controller is getting a bit
flakey, suppose the disk has some bad sectors, etc. It could even just
be simply that the Windows install is subtly broken such that it gives
the impression of a hardware failure. Your method will fail to notice
some or all of these (and others) in different situations.

> restore CD would also work, but it would have the downside of
> overwriting the customer's data, which isn't a particularly good way
> to endear yourself to your customers.

Backups. Send your machine away for service and the fault might be found
in the disk, which will be replaced. Oops you lost all your data and it
had nothing to do with Linux. Maybe the machine is so hosed they'll just
chuck it away and send you a fresh one. Same "problem".

I think it's pretty unreasonable and an abdication of personal
responsibility to expect the vendor to clear up after you. I would even
strongly advise against sending a laptop for service with *any* personal
data on it. With that in mind, objecting to what is or isn't on it when
it comes back is somewhat redundant.

> and as I've pointed out, they can do this without touching the
> contents of the hard drive.

See above. They may do it that way anyway, but if they are it's a poor test.

> Thus there is no valid reason for them to refuse support because Linux
> happens to be installed.

What about if you replace the BIOS with LinuxBIOS? or load your own
microcode into the CPU? or run insane overclocking software, or, or, or...
They have to draw a line somewhere and if that line is somewhere
personally distasteful to you, use a different vendor and recommend
others to do the same. There are plenty of vendors now who play by our
rules and produce some excellent hardware - their efforts should be
appreciated and rewarded with the same zeal as others are criticised.
That would certainly endear more people/companies to our community than
only ever seeing mention of Linux/FOSS when it's about the latest GPL
threat, or people calling a company to call them idiots because they are
using Oracle Linux (which is actually happening).

With that in mind - buy a Thinkpad (hurry, before Lenovo completely ruin
them). Buy all-Intel chipset laptops/desktops/servers. Take Dell up on
their offer of increased community participation by considering whatever
they end up selling with linux pre-installed rather than buying
something blank and installing yourself. Maybe make your next laptop be
from system76's ubuntu range.

Cheers,
-- 
Chris Jones
  cmsj at tenshu.net
   www.tenshu.net

Men go crazy in congregations, they only get better one by one.
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