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Free Gentoo Technical Support
Anonymous Coward writes to tell us that GenUX is offering free technical support for anyone using Gentoo Linux. I spoke briefly with one of their support staff and he assured me that it would be completely free Gentoo tech support for approximately 2 weeks to help them 'work out the kinks' of their new support system. GenUX is offering this support through both web-based chat and the traditional phone call. I certainly hope this catches on.
Support in lojban is highly useful, especially since it is the most common language of computer using people.
What kind of Gentoo nerd would I be if I called tech support?
Yay - two weeks of Beta Testers for Gentoo Tech Support!
:)
I'd be curious to know what they've done
--LWM
Their documentation is already pretty good; between that and the forums, I don't see how useful live support would be; Gentoo has always seemed like the hobbyists' distro to me (disclaimer: I run it, and know people who use it in production environments). It just seems to me that if support is important to a person/firm, they'll pony up the $50/$100/$whatever for a license that offers support as well.
May the threads progress competently.
"I apologize sir, our system is compiling. Thanks for holding."
/obligatory... and ha ha, really I'm a Gentoo user
The press release says you will be able to get support "from a Gentoo developer". Is this accurate? Will you actually get to talk to a developer? Most places have you talk to a tech support person not the actual developers.
Bradley Holt
You mean guinea pig tech support offers that are limited time while they work the bugs out of their system?
While this may be mildly helpful- especially in the latter portion of the trial, how helpful will it really be? Techs fumbling around for an answer, problems transferring calls, long queue times? Either way, those of us who know what we're doing- if the problem is bad enough that we need to call, is our problem going to happen during their short trial?
Either way, hope what catches on again?
The compilation takes two weeks on machine? By the time I finish it, the support is over. No good
...they advised one guy to rebuild his 486.
You mean beta testing a system? I think that caught on about 20 years ago.
As for free tech support, that's not really what this is about, just testing. In two weeks their system will be up and running (most likely at the level they need it to be), and they traded support for free testers. Don't worry, after they'll charge just like all other support. You can't expect everything to be free.
Will they stay with you while you watch the system compile your selected code?
Tech support usually is unhappy is you have to sit with them for a couple days at a time.
Form the press release: "During the initial release of this program, GenUX will be in a testing phase, and will be offering free support during this time"
Support is free for few weeks, then you have to paid the traditionally high support costs
http://www.gen-ux.com/catalog
What OSS Piracy did GenUX commit? Talk to any Gentoo Dev that works with us and you will see all of our code except the closed source (gpl free) compile farm has been released one way or another back to the community. GenUX has even funded paying for Bugs in Gentoo for almost 8 months.
<sarcasm>Yes, because their are just such a pethera of other ways to make any money selling Linux that getting rid of the tech support side of the house would make everything a lot simpler.</sarcasm>
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do. - B.F. Skinner
Once your addicted, the price goes from free to... well... not free.
;-)
Anyway they're still doing the right thing, since Gentoo is the-one-and-only Linux distro
Gentoo has excellent documentation for installing their OS whether you are choosing the more difficult installation or the canned installation. Not only that, if you have a problem the forums that they have set up is superiour. It seemed like any question I had was answered within a few hours of asking, sometimes minutes.
The Technomancer
"Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active."-
Unbelivable community unity.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Up to now I had to run down to Wendy's in-between shift changes to get to talk to a Linux developer!
It was an off-topic joke that had nothing to do with GenUX. It was posted in the wake of the RIAA article over the weekend to mock the two-sided attitude towards copyright that Slashdotters have, citing the CherryOS article as an example. Sorry for the confusion.
...in a corp IT environment "answered within hours, sometimes minutes" doesn't cut it. If you wanted to deploy Gentoo in any serious company setting you need to know that there are people you can call 24-7 who know how to fix whatever's not working.
I've never used Gentoo before (fedora man myself) but for it to be taken seriously for hosting critical apps this type of service is required.
You and I both know any competent sysadmin worth their salt will know how to diagnose and fix problems but PHB's want to be able to phone a vendor and vent down the phone, it's like a comfort blanket to them.
I am NaN
That's not very nice!
Two weeks? It will take longer than that for my computer to compile Gentoo :)
I just tried it out, because I've got some burning gentoo questions that nobody on the forums can answer.
First off, their web chat interface was crazy broken. It just reloaded a thousand times a second.
Their phone support was actually really good. I was surprised that it wasn't slashdotted. I didn't have to wait at all. The sad part is that calling them was about the equivalent of calling myself on the phone. They did the same google search that I did and found the same stuff I did. This is really only good for people who don't have a geeky friend who knows as much as I do. For now it's free call them with everything you've got. But it wont be worth paying for because they are no better able to answer the burning ultra hard questions than you or I.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Wait... what?... Popular and stable???
Either they've confused Gentoo with Debian, or they're talking up their prospectus to sell shares...
(I choose Gentoo because of it's flexibility)
... they would fix all of the broken ebuilds. Of all of Gentoo's issues, support is not one of them, their forums are really the best I've seen. The biggest problem is the portage is not scaling well, largely due to the high number of crappy submitted ebuilds, and the low number of testers and devs. It feels like its got much worse in the past year or two, with broken packages often making it to 'stable' and critical apps staying hard masked (the delay in MySQL 4.1, PHP5, and all of the Apache issues are my favorite examples).
I do love Gentoo & Portage, but so long as 'emerge -upD world' will fail consistently even on the most conservative use flags & keywords, I'll be using another distro.
don't apologize!, you clearly need to go study your craft some more.
I've written a program in C to provide technical support to new Gentoo users that behaves like a linux expert! The source code is below.
#include stdio.h
int main () { printf("RTFM\n"); }
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Note -ffuck-up-all-floats is implied
CSR: gentoo support how can i help u?
./ geek: well i have problem with vwx..i configure y & vwx is messed up & i cannot load the z module & i dont want abc daemon to be kicked in when def server shell is up
./ geek: Thank you so much. will try it & get back to u if it doesnt work...
CSR: ooh..hold on sir, while i transfer u to apropriate department..
after 5-mins...
CSR: sir, you to have compile def modules with fgh libraries in 3443.115 version & then use the binaries of stuvw to download the ijklm, that will solve the prob.
CSR: very much welcome sir (closing the google search page & the forums talking about the same problem)
My fault for not being clear. GenUX has funded Gentoo Devs to fix bugs in Gentoo.
Wow. I think we've managed to conduct a DDoS on a phone number! Next all we need is to report a Linus Torvalds sighting at X, and we'll create a stampede.
Anonymous Coward writes to tell us that GenUX with an e-mail address of hparker@gen-ux.com?
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
I dont think he was trolling, I'm pretty sure he was trying to clear up the confusion. He didn't take a side or state an opinion.
Since when has Slashdot ever had issues with Astroturfing for their friends?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
"Yes one of GenUX's goals is to higher Gentoo Developers"
What, are they going to make them smoke dope before they let them take any calls?
"Yeah man, all you have to do is... uh... what was the question again?"
But I use Gentoo, how does this affect me?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
2. Give away support for Free - including using Slashdot for advertising
3.
4. **** PROFIT ****
When will we stop seeing Underpants Gnome business models - Right after we see a spell checker for Slashdot posting I assume
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
...they appear to eat their own dogfood.
-dhbarr.My Gentoo system is so out wack from time to time and something always needing to be re-compiled that I haven't gotten around to yet. If a system like mine is all over the map how can live Tech Support really help me? Sometimes I try to ask a question in IRC but even that becomes tricky.
I'll admit I had jumped from Win-world to Gentoo and kind of learned on the fly. I imagine tech support will have to deal with moderate noobs like me at the start of the call. Like ask a few qualification questions first.
"You don't know that [obscure command]? Read a book or two then please call back."
Some aim to please, I aim to tease.
There are two tips I can give for anyone installing Gentoo:
First, read the handbook. Following it step by step, one should not encounter any errors.
Second, Gentoo forums is the best place to look if you do encounter any errors.
No costs whatsoever (except time and the money you pay to your ISP)
So how does this differ from http://forums.gentoo.org/ and irc://irc.freenode.net/gentoo (I don't think /. wants me to linkify it...)?
The difference with professional support is normally that they have to fix it because you pay them.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
> free health care as well, cool;))
They should offer up servers to help the world compile. Now *that's* support....
I run Gentoo on two systems (AMD64 and Pentium 4), and I've generally found technical support to be pretty good. I've used Red Hat and SuSE and Debian and Ubuntu and Knoppix, and found the tech support for those distros rather lacking. With Gentoo, I jump on IRC (irc.freenode.net) and usually have an answer within minutes. The #gentoo-amd64 channel is exceptionally helpful.
Even with technical support, I wouldn't recommend Gentoo for a novice. My wife's machine runs Ubuntu, and I used Knoppix on my kids' boxes. Gentoo is great for someone like me who wants (needs?) to be on the bleeding edge, and who likes a single source for the latest "stuff."
All about me
It's a proven business plan.
How soon will it be before Gentoo follows BSD down the path to total oblivion?
Tech Support: [recording] "Thank you for calling your free tech support service. While you are on hold, please enjoy informative messages from our sponsors." [15 minutes of ads] [person answers] "Thank you for calling, can I have your information please? Can I interest you in a subscription? Would you like to buy a product upgrade? I am sorry your free tech support time is up. Thank you for calling."
I dont know anything about this company but this is what free tech support sounds like to me.
remember the alamo LinuxCare?
Didn't they go bankrupt? Seriously, I don't think gentoo is used enough in the business world to support this, but who knows I could be wrong.
I thought that Gentoo was purchased by Microsoft during the whole Daniel Robbins debacle.
Howsabout making the genkernel --udev option standard now that devfs is totally deprecated?
Also, the last time I tried emerging my home box, it appears that SATA drivers didn't get put in the initramfs. SUCK!!!
The Linux community should take in serious consideration the need for some kind of unification, a-la *BSD!
More choices can yeld to a fragmentation of efforts over too many distributions differing mostly only in the package management and a bunch of software patches.
A very specialised support company could have hard time when a distribution goes out of style
.Or maybe not, because a Linux-related problem is (almost) the same on all distributions!
E pluribus unum!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Paying a developer to spend most of their time working for you on your proprietary back-end/astroturfing, lowering the volume of bugs that they resolve tenfold, is not "funded paying for Bugs in Gentoo for almost 8 months" at all.
The only benefit Linux support will provide is to save you time, i.e. the time it takes to search all the places, etc... AND find that your problem is pretty unique and not currently solvable. How many times do you remember looking for linux solutions and finding mainly debates on how to implement things? What's also a problem is everyone is trying to use the latest open-source release for enterprise apps, not so stable IMO.
99% of the time, the support/problem info you search for is either obsolete or not explained well enough. It would be best instead to have a screen capture error-search tool instead of person-to-person support. Google and Linux support (i..e searching for linux solutions) do not mix well with the informal nature of discussing and solving defects.
Works every time! Or, is this more along the lines of the first-crack-hit-is-free model? Not trolling, here. Why does anyone think that free (as in beer) is ever real, when it comes to humans doing work for you? Something always has to give, and the price always has to be paid... so why do people persist in even using the word "free" in this context? It just rings false, and further distorts the use of that word.
Better to say "no charge for two weeks" or "subsidized" if that's what they really mean - at least it's more realistic, and reduces the cancerous poison of economic magical thinking. At least, in coverage of it, it would keep everyone a little clearer on the subject, and help reduce the cognitive pollution just a tiny bit. I mean, isn't Gentoo for smart, thinking people? Why lead off with a headline that implies something that's just not - on the face of it - really true (or, not the whole picture)? I hate it when banks do it ("Free! But, Not Really[tm]"), and when everyone else does it, too. Oh well.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I tend to use (in this order):
... you dont see RTFM anyways the only time i have to call for support for anything its for my ISP only to find out some dumbass cut a cable and I have to wait a day to get back online
1. Google
2. Gentoo forums
3. Gentoo Wiki
4. Gentoo IRC
if I run into problems
Yes
What is Gentoo and how is it better than Windows? Who actually USES it?
Something I noticed on the weekend while reading the newspaper -- there is a type of penguin called a Gentoo. Kind of fits in nicely with the Tux penguin theme. In fact these penguins were in the news because they lived on a minefield ..
What was your question?
I'm not sure I've ever seen a question asked in a slashdot comment, when phrased as impossibly difficult, that someone didn't post the correct solution to within minutes.
Never confuse volume with power.
There are gobs of things I've never gotten to work with Gentoo, like Hotplug. There are other things that break regularly, like audio, which will go away mysteriously and not work again until I reboot.
My biggest problem with Gentoo isn't a tech support one. It's a big giant bug called "etc-update" that bombards me with over 100 "changes" to config files I've never heard of every time I upgrade a bunch of things.
I've paid my dues. I've compiled kernels and admin'ed my own box. I think, rather than try to fix this annoying thing called Gentoo, I'm going to just switch to Ubuntu.
Yes, it's flamebait. But seriously, there are certain things about Gentoo that I don't want to give up, but there are other problems that remain that have never been fixed that are driving me away. To each his own, I guess.
I work for an ISP tech support and I actually had a Gentoo user call in one time because she had no idea why she couldn't get online. My job doesn't actually allow me to troubleshoot Linux but this customer was upset because she didn't know anything about linux, so I helped her get back online. Turned out it was a Gentoo users mom who didn't want linux but her son insisted on it because he hates microsoft. This makes me wonder how many of these people calling into their tech support are gonna Linux fan boys mothers.
hey wolf... Do you who appart from deedra works for Gen-ux. I admit that I'm pretty curious
(disclaimer.. I read -core too... )
I'm wondering if I'll be brave enough to destroy the FC4 distro on my laptop for Gentoo! I think i will! I think I can muster up enough courage to get through an install if I have someone there with me to get it up and running! Oh Happy Day! Gentoo here I come!
Generation Trance: What generation are you?
do they have any Coda experts online ;-) That would be uber-cool.
If nothing else, it is nice to have more than one set of eyes
This should not be dismissed without admitting that there may be a better way for the metadata updates to be handled.
Logic is a wonderful thing but doesn't always beat actual thought. -Terry Pratchett
Etc-update is definitely a good thing. Often when a package is updated there is a new version of the default configuration file. What do they do? If they replace my file with it, they killed my configuration. Unacceptable. If they don't replace it, they potentially leave a deprecated, broken, or insecure configuration file that I've never heard of on my system. Also unacceptable. The only solution is to let me scan the differences and see what I want to change and what I don't. If it is trying to override something I don't understand, I let it. If I know what the change means and I want the old one, I keep the old one. That's how it works.
You can get all the information you need by what is currently available (documentation, forums, irc) but if you want an authoritive answers and don't have the time to check, Tech Support is a good option.
I recall a year ago GenUX was claiming to offer precompiled binary packages for your specific platform/use flags/etc.
I thought he was refering to the top most post.
leonardop, hparker (submitter of this article), dmwaters (pr author), astinus is the list I've seen.
The software is free, the support is free...Is there any element here which people are supposed to pay for?
Oh, wait...I forgot. Earning money is considered evil around here, unless it's done from within a cubicle. My bad.
Honestly, anyone who thinks Communism is dead needs only to spend two weeks on Slashdot. They'll quickly be shown just how mistaken they are. Methinks Senator McCarthy was alive 50 years too early.
i registered two days ago and tried online chat support... two times for several hours it just said: "there is a one person in queue before you. please wait.." or something like that.. it refreshed itself every half a minute but no luck.. that person was chatting for ages ;) pitty...