Contributed by Linux Today reader Richard Kadoi
[ The opinions expressed by authors on Linux Today are their
own. They speak only for themselves and not for Linux Today. ] -lt
ed
In seeing the recent articles in the press about PC
manufacturers giving the buying public as an option for OS to be
Linux, I wanted to point out a few things from a Salesman’s
perpsective.
A little history before my bantor
First of all, as a end user of PC’s (of all types), I find that
my homebrew system running Linux has been wonderfully stable and
unstressful in keeping it going 24/7 without a hitch. As a
novice-to-intermediate Linux hack, I personally don’t mind
‘tweaking’ my system to work the way I want it to.
Unfortunately for me, it took me from starting with MS-DOS,
moving up to Windows 3.1, moving over to OS/2 Warp v3.0 before
realising that my system was being taxxed way too
much for the simple things I had been wanting to do since I retired
my Amiga 2000 back in 1994. I won’t get into the semantics of why I
still own an Amiga 2000, but let’s just say that nothing in the
IBM-PC world impressed me for a long time.
I started with a modest 486 and moved up to my current k6-233
w/64MB’s of RAM, gobs of storage and an pretty decent
video-card/monitor setup.
My main bantor
Now, I’ve been seriously in the market for another PC, something
easy to setup with a bit more horsepower under the hood. I want a
K6-2 or K6-3 chip machine, with at least 128MB’s of RAM and a
decent Motherboard/Videocard setup, and with a switch so I can use
my one monitor (17″) with both PC’s. Looking at several local
computer store ad’s and online ad’s, I’m finding that most systems,
especially the ones in the sub-USD$500 range are poor setups at
best.
Being a manufactures rep, representing the various companies I
do to the retail end, I find it very hard to swallow and even
believe that any combination of low-end parts to sell low-end PC’s
will benifit Linux in any way, shape or form. If companies are not
willing to test the vast variety of possible (virtually infinite)
combinations of hardware, a PC selling for under USD$500.00 would
not be a good thing for Linux. We already know it’s not a good
things at times for even Win98/NT.
Now, I know some of you are probably thinking “who cares, it’s
cheap, we’ll make Linux work anyway” must remember that these
companies are selling low-end PC’s (with Win98 installed) to John
Q. Public who doesn’t know a dime about how a PC’s innards work.
That’s why most vendors are selling Win98 machines at such low
prices, because they know that Mr. Public will go home, plug it in,
do his little MS-ditty and the PC will work. If something fatal or
non-fatal happens on a Wintel-box (or Mac), Mr. Public can call the
tech-support people at the manufacturers’ level and be helped by
the myriad of technical people that are affluent in Windows. If Mr.
Public were to buy from a vendor a Linux-box, if a fatal or
non-fatal system error occurs, would he be able to call on the
manufacturer at 2 A.M. and get the technical support he needs, or
will he be brought to his knees because that PC vendor may not yet
be technically Linux-ready (yes, I know, most major manufacturers
have announced installation of Linux OS onto their machines). My
concern is that are the manufacturers really ready for Mr. Public
to call with a minor problem, or even a major one, that can be
handled with a phone call?
As a Salesman, I certainly wouldn’t be willing to bundle Linux
with a low-end PC unless the manufacturer I represent has the
technical background to be able to handle a 2 A.M. call about a
video card making weird vertical or horizontal scan lines because
the end-user changed a video setting.
Oh wait, that already happens on Win-machines, nevermind.
*smiles* – let’s hope that same staff is up to speed with Linux in
it’s various incarnations.
(Richard is a manufacturer’s sales rep in the midwest, and
has programmed and dabbled in Apple’s, Amiga’s, and IBM-PC’s for
the past 18 years. His main love though is muscle cars from the
60’s, not CPU horsepower, in case anyone cared =)