Slashdot Mirror
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.
What kind of Gentoo nerd would I be if I called tech support?
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
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
Well exactly, it's two weeks free support while they get their tech support lines running correctly. Or, alternatively, it's two weeks free support in return for a front page posting on Slashdot.
I'm slightly curious about the original poster's assertion that "I certainly hope this catches on." What does (s)he hope catches on; that distro companies offer free service while beta-ing their service? Seems an odd thing to wish for, since it's a one-time offer that's hardly going to set the world alight.
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!
...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!
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.
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.
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.
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
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)
It's a proven business plan.
Actually, the business is geared towards smaller outfits. Maybe not one without an admin, but perhaps one with only a single admin and older computers. In fact, at their presentation at the Gentoo Developer Conference after LWE:SF, they specifically mentioned older machines in their presentation. You can view their entire presentation online at http://devconference.gentoo.org/ (warning, streaming video). They were last in the afternoon session.
I'm slightly curious about the original poster's assertion that "I certainly hope this catches on." What does (s)he hope catches on; that distro companies offer free service while beta-ing their service? Seems an odd thing to wish for, since it's a one-time offer that's hardly going to set the world alight.
While one of the other responders to you is correct, and the email address from the submittor is a gen-ux.com email addr, I think the "I certainly hope this catches on," comment in the post comes from the editor. /. tends to quote a submittor, and then non quoted text is from the editor, in this case, ScuttleMonkey. The posting looks like a GenUX person submitted a story saying, "we got this thing," and from the rest of the post, it looks like ScuttleMonkey called them up, checked it out, and posted his feelings on the topic, with no real commentary by the submittor in the posting at all. Anyway, that's how it read to me...
Couldn't figure out how to get slashdot to keep them
Use <(<) and >(>)
HTH =)
Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
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.
If you really wanted an answer, I'd be tempted to give one. But then if you really wanted an answer, you could have just started at www.gentoo.org. So instead I'll assume this is an imitation-question, and give you an imitation-answer, as to who USEs it:
USE=" acpi -bonobo bootsplash -eds emul-linux-x86 -esd exif -gnome -gtkhtml -guile -ipv6 java -kde lm_sensors nptl ppds threads
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The answer:
Setup KDE's arts to output to your headset, then:
artsdsp -m teamspeak
artsdsp -m ut2004
Which will give both teamspeak and ut2004 emulated memory-mapped (mostly what people mean when they say hardware controlled) sound output. It does consume a small bit of CPU, but today sound mixing is not that big a deal.
I also believe that the above could probably be done by other software mixers, possibly esd, but I don't know how to set them up off the top of my head.
Hope this helps.