HP Dishonors Warranty If You Load Linux

darkonc points us to a writeup on linux.com about a very Linux-unfriendly policy at HP. A woman bought a Compaq laptop and loaded Ubuntu on it. Some time later, still well inside the 1-year hardware warranty, the keyboard started acting up. An HP support rep told her, "Sorry, we do not honor our hardware warranty when you run Linux." Gateway and Dell refused to comment to the reporter on what they would do in a similar situation. (Linux.com and Slashdot are both part of OSTG.)

Comments

Re:Illegal?

[Mistlefoot]

I was modded down for explaining this a few days ago.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=228099&cid=184 82273

When you are using unsupported drivers who's to say the driver didn't screw up the hardware.

You also can't test that component "for free" neither. Any hardware component will need to be removed from the machine and tested elsewhere. That is not normally how warranties work. If your video card doesn't work Dell may very well require you to test that under "restore disc" conditions......which is hard to do in Linux.

woman?

[Shakrai]

A woman who installed Linux?

Can I get her phone number???

Please?

Re:Sticky keys of evil

[dedazo]

The support monkey that answered the phone has a script. That script is designed around diagnosing problems using Windows. She didn't have Windows installed. So the support monkey said "your warranty is void" even though that's obviously not true, and under the current legal warranty act (Magnusson something) his reasons would never hold up in court, as any first year legal intern would tell you. The support monkey costs gobs of money compared to the tiny profit HP made on the computer, and is supposed to drive these people away under pain of death as soon as they deviate from the norm.

I'm sure HP will correct this soon enough, but of course that doesn't stop Slashdork and the rest of the world from rising up in hysterical indignation to blame their woes on Microsoft and the "big dumb companies" that do not have the infrastructure to walk Jane Dow through running modprobe on her $800 laptop.

Re:Illegal?

[pngwen]

The thing is, even if it is illegal, they're safe. So long as they make sure to only apply that policy to people who aren't rich that is. If you make a normal salary, you have no access to the legal system. Laws only hurt you, you aren't wealthy enough for them to help you, so just buy another laptop!