[NTLUG:Discuss] Fry's and Linux

[Burton M. Strauss III]

Oh I can't resist...

> -----Original Message-----
> From: discuss-bounces at ntlug.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at ntlug.org]On
> Behalf Of Kevin Hulse
> Sent: Friday, June 18, 2004 11:59 AM
> To: NTLUG Discussion List
> Subject: RE: [NTLUG:Discuss] Fry's and Linux

<snip />

> If "education" is required to make a sale then a
> salesman should be an educator. I can expect this
> out of Lowes or Home Depot. I should be able to
> expect the same out of a more technically oriented
> electronics retailer.

In a perfect world.  Sure.  But Fry's is focused on price, not service.

Lowes and HD are trying both, and with vastly variable results.  The reports
of HD's CEO getting beat up by shareholders at the last annual meeting over
poor service were amazing.

In my local Lowes there's a lady, Lacey, whom I would trust to help me with
ANY plumbing project any time.  And there's six or eight folks I wouldn't
trust to hand me a sealed box off a stack of them.

In my local HD, well, if you can FIND somebody to ask a question... I've
gotten better and worse answers than the experience we're talking about at
Fry's.

> That gives you two massive advantages over whatever
> process produced the manufacturers information: a
> wider test sample and use under conditions comparable
> to what an end user would tolerate.
>
> If someone was willing to work through the problems to
> get something to work, chances are that it really does
> work.

Yes, and no.  The problem is the vastly different levels of skills
available.  And the difference in systems - two years down the road, my
Dad's Dell is almost untouched from what left the factory.  But only Dr.
Frankenstein would recognize my Brother-in-Law's one year old Dell...

Here's what happens.

User A, a newbie puts card B into system C and finds it doesn't work.  Posts
a question, gets no help, gives up.  Reports it does not work.  Takes it
back to Fry's who marks it down $5 and puts it back on the shelf.

Vastly experienced user Z, puts the same card B into a system C' (very
similar to C), sets the parameters in /etc/modules.conf and finds it works
great.  Reports that it works, but doesn't mention the settings - he's an
experienced user and this is normal for any card.

Now you go out looking for reports on card B+ in your FrobozMagicCarpet
200A74.  There's a report out there for a Froboz200A says it doesn't work
and for FrobozMagicCarpet 200A70 that says it does.

You try it and it fails.  Not because the card won't work, but because all
of the information isn't available to you - that you need to tweak
/etc/modules.conf...

Is the information available to you 'wrong'?  No.  Incomplete?  Yes.
Out-dated?  Maybe - what was true in 2.4.9 isn't in 2.4.18 for many
devices...


The differences can be incredibly subtle.  Linksys makes (made) an 8 port
10/100 hub.  But Linksys EFAH08W v1 isn't EXACTLY the same as a EFAH08W v3.
Well, for most people they are.  But the v3 is actually a switching-hub and
for network management purposes works differently.  For 9999 of 10000 people
it doesn't matter and they're the 'same'.


Even the box can be misleading.  No manufacturer ever tests more than a
handful of combinations.  At best they have 10-15 common machines from major
vendors in 'the lab', and they put the card in, see if Windows recognizes it
and make sure the display doesn't look too punky.  Poof - "Windows XP" goes
on the box.


> H*ll, even a corporate policy that requries the drones
> to state "we don't support Linux" would be an
> improvement.

Sure, because that would give us a target to work against...



We've come a long way on this discussion.  The truth is that the
compatibility databases are a great resource.  You just have to use a little
common sense.

The best advice I can offer is

 1) Make sure it's a mainstream vendor.  Or something totally generic.

    (I've been burnt by the people in the middle trying to do something
fancy with older parts.)

 2) Not too old and not too new.

    (Esp. graphic chips, it takes a few months for the drivers to be tweaked
and to make it out into the distributions)
    (And people, please, GIVE UP on 60MHz Pentiums and ISA motherboards.
Yes it only cost you $25 and it is probably good enough for some light web
surfing, but the SHRINK bills are going to cost far more than a real system
would)

 3) Make sure it can be returned.

Then give it a try.

You will be amazed at how much stuff just WORKS in Linux.  That wasn't true
in 2.2 and early 2.4, but pretty much any thing that's PCI/AGP - NICs, real
modems (not winmodems), graphics cards, etc. will work...  It's when it
doesn't work or almost works that it gets UGLY, fast!



-----Burton