Dell Thinks Ubuntu Makes Hardware More Fragile?

WolfWings writes "Apparently Dell has decided that Ubuntu-based computers are ineligible for their famed CompleteCare service, or any form of hardware warranty what-so-ever. The news has only recently hit Dell's own IdeaStorm website, via a forum post describing an interaction with the company's customer service. Says the customer, 'I am looking for protection from bricks. The laws of physics do not differ from one OS to the other...do they?' After so recently decided to support Linux on their machines, including limited technical support, Dell seems to be squandering any possible good-will with this decision to leave purchasers of these machines high and dry for hardware warranty coverage." Update: 06/05 23:40 GMT by KD : many readers let us know that Dell has said that the omission of extended warranty and CompleteCare options from the configurator for Ubuntu systems was an "ordering system glitch." It should be fixed by now according to DesktopLinux.com.

Comments

Of course...

[Zencyde]

Windows has support for the Ageia PhysX card. Physics moves a little more smoothly and a brick will dent a Windows box in a more realistic manner than a Linux box. I hope that clears things up. ~Dell Customer Support.

Support

[jshriverWVU]

They have a system to diagnose and test hardware defects based on software checks which aren't available under Linux. They need to create a similiar system where each component can be tested using native linux tools.

Yes please check dmesg | grep ERROR. Try saying that to someone who doesnt know what a shell is.

Re:Support

[endianx]

That system sucks anyway. I called them up with some laptop problems. I ran their test. Their test said nothing was wrong, so they told me nothing was wrong. They refused to fix anything. So the only difference between Windows and Linux hardware support is that with Linux, they tell you upfront that they won't fix it.

Re:Support

[jcgf]

Many (most?) newer models also have a bootable diagnostics program on another partition that can be accessed through the boot menu (F12 on boot).

We do Dell warranty service where I work and I have to say that they're not very good computers and other than price, I can't see why you would buy one. This Ubuntu ordeal is just more of the same bs customers have to put up with. On the other hand I wish customers would get it through their thick skulls that their data is not covered under warranty.

Re:Support

[forrestt]

The FOSS community (and I am one of them) have been waiting a LONG time for Dell to start selling Linux native systems. What Dell doesn't realize, is we are more than happy to help write any diagnostic software they need. They just need to learn how to utilize the FOSS community better. . .

Dell, if you tell us the checks you want to have made, we will write the software for you. If you want our help though, then it needs to be a win-win situation, and you need to support the physical hardware you sell us.

Re:Support

[idesofmarch]

I realize you are very well-intentioned, but Dell is a business, not an open source community. As a business, Dell must honor all promises it makes, or risk lawsuits and bad press. For Dell to hold out a warranty now, as you ask, Dell must have a way to diagnose hardware issues right now. Not later, when maybe someone can get around to writing some code, but right now. At this point, Dell is not prepared to do this. Later, when it gets some better support tools, this may change. Your proposal is akin to "Hey guys, let's all be cool to each other. You give us a little warranty and we try to write some code and it will all be groovy." That's not how business works.

Re:Support

[d3am0n]

Dells already got a full deck of diagnostics for the hardware. The problem is when someone calls in with the equivelant of a windows blue screen, the hardware all checks out, but something is wrong. In this case on a windows machine I'd go ahead and help the customer out with a windows issue until it was fixed. I love ubuntu linux to death but I'm not trained on it and I'd be scrounging around like a noob trying to help people. It's going to take alil while to get all us agents off the phones and trained in a new OS. I'm planning on signing up for the training and moving over to XPS to support the ubuntu machines but it takes time. Everyone that's going to support linux is working on the phones right now, they have to plan for us to take time off the phones while balancing out the call volumes and then go through the growing pains as we start supporting the OS and make lil gaffs etc here and there. Hardware warranty support doesn't mean that we can point blank tell the customers software isn't supported and hang up on them, that'd be bad buisness and a bad customer experience and we're all highly trained that customer satisfaction is what counts above all else at the end of the day.

Give Dell *SOME* credit...

[bdr529]

Dell Thinks Ubuntu Makes Hardware More Fragile?

No, but it makes for a nice headline, eh? I think it more likely they believe their users will mis-identify software issues as hardware issues and request replacement hardware. Further, it would also cost them extra to have personell on hand (familiar enough with the OS) to help RESOLVE hardware issues. Either way, it costs them more.

It's not entirely unreasonable to charge more for a warranty coverage. It *IS* odd not to provide coverage at all, though.

But not because Dell denies that "The laws of physics do not differ from one OS to the other". That's just frustrated customer venting...

Two possibilities come to mind...

[eln]

Either:

1.) Dell does not have the tools or expertise in house to do this yet, but will in the future. So, they got pressured into releasing their Linux PCs before they were ready to support them. Incompetence maybe, but not malice.

2.) Dell simply put out Linux PCs to shut the geek crowd up and get them to buy Dells. However, they don't really want to support Linux, so they designed the program to fail. This way, when they cancel this offering in a year or two due to poor sales, they can say they tried, but Linux on the desktop just doesn't work.

I want to believe it's reason 1, but the added fact that Dell doesn't seem to be advertising this thing at all, and the fact that you actually have to jump through some hoops on the website to even see that the option is available, makes me think that reason 2 isn't entirely impossible either.

Re:Two possibilities come to mind...

[div_2n]

In a recent chat with a rep, I was given this phone number:

866-622-1947

When I called it, the person that answered said they were the Dell Linux tech support group. So I think they DO have people in house to support Linux.

The 6 stages of every project.

[DoctorDyna]

I look at it like this. Dell released machines loaded with Linux, much to the hurray of most of us. However, thinking from a corporate view, which seems to be shared with most large companies, you are missing one important thing:

4.) The search for the guilty.

See, in a corporate world, Windows servers and Windows workstations are used for one simple reason. When something goes wrong, they know who to take to court. They know who to blame. They know who to call on the phone at 3 AM and work all night trying to solve a critical server process that likes to eat memory or crash.

Now, seeing as how applications exist that can modify hardware (read: brick it) then something tells me that Dell isn't going to warantee a mainboard when they can't call up and say "Hey, that patch you released bricked our onboard sound chip / video / lan / cdrom firmware."

For those of you interested, the 6 stages of every project are as follows:

1.) Enthusiasm.

2.) Disillusionment.

3.) Panic.

4.) The Search For The Guilty.

5.) The Punishment of the Innocent.

6.) Accolades for the Non-Participants.

Re:We are a fickle group, aren't we.

[foxtrot]

Admittedly, there are issues with not having any hardware warranty, but do we need to get so incendiary against someone who is trying to work with us?

Especially when, this being Slashdot, everything gets overblown.

These machines come with a hardware warranty.

They don't come with the ability to purchase an extended warranty.

Now, this makes some sense. Loading Dells with Linux is a trial thing. This is not something they want to figure out how to support long-term yet; if this doesn't work for them, having four and five year service contracts out there they have to cover is going to make this a very expensive prospect. They're willing to make sure they have Linux expertise around to support these things for their base warranty time, whether or not it turns out they can make a buck selling Linux systems long-term. But it makes sense that they wouldn't want to keep Linux geeks around (which, let's face it, cost more than Windows monkeys) long term if they can't sell these things long-term.

I'm the brick guy

[AnotherCaptainTux]

This is like my third post ever on slashdot. I read it often, though. I am the guy with the brick quote. Here is the whole story to be fair to Dell. On Friday, my laptop died. It was an Acer. The screen was damaged. Replacement cost of cracked screen is more than halfway to the cost of a new laptop. So I decide I will support the new Ubuntu Dell Laptops. I go online to Dell's Website and go to the Ubuntu page. I choose the E1505n. I upgrade to a GB of Ram, I get the Nvidia 256 MB graphics card, I get the DVD burner optical drive. So far so good. I am happy with the default processor and the screen. Now, another driving factor is that Dell has the nifty cool complete care (tm) plan. With this bad boy, a random brick can fly through the air, hit my laptop, shatter it to threads, and Dell will cover it. Think of it more as an insurance plan than a service plan. I have a friend with 3 kids who has had to take advantage of it not once, but twice. Both times Dell took care of them no questions asked. Now, the first time the Dell laptop had XP on it...the second time..gentoo. Still, no problems here. So, I decide to get it....just in case I get burned twice. On June 2, I get an email telling me my order has been acknowledged and I will get another email shortly giving me a order number (I also paid for next day shipping). Well, the rest of June 2 and all of June 3 goes by. No new email. I check my spam folder...nada...just the usual assortment of male enhancement and refi deals. So on June 4 I call Dell. They can see no order...they can see they debited my account...but no order. Hmmm...confusing. Very sorry, sir. Let me talk to my supervisor, please hold. She has no explanation for the lost order, but she will reprocess the order and I will get my next day shipping for free since I lost time. YAY! But wait! When we "build" my Dell, there is no longer a Complete Care (tm) plan for Ubuntu. She puts me on hold. She find out that my order was bumped out since they changed the policy on offering Complete Care (tm) on Ubuntu Dells. Why? She puts me on hold. Now comes the fun. "Sir, Ubuntu is a third party software and applications come from sources not from Dell." "Vista is a product of Dell?" "No sir, but we have a relationship with MS." "So you do not have a relationship with Canonical, the commercial company that sponsors Ubuntu?" "Hold.........Yes we do, but the software for other things comes from third parties." "So what if I buy a game for a Vista laptop from Best Buy? As that is a third party software..does that invalidate a Complete Care (tm) policy?" "No, sir." "What if I download an update from Microsoft to keep my Vista Current, how does that differ from an update from Ubuntu other than the fact the Ubuntu update actually helps my system?" "I do not know sir. See, sir, Linux comes from all over the place and as such cannot be supported." "I believe Redhat and even Microsoft differ with that opinion. I am not looking for support, that is another option I can click on another screen in your website. I am looking for protection from bricks. The laws of physics do not differ from one OS to the other...do they?" "No Sir." "Talking to your superior will not help my cause, do you have the phone number and email address of an executive do you?" She gave it to me. I wrote an email. I expressed my concerns politely and professionally. The next day-early this morning, I got a reply from a Dell Representative named Todd. Todd wrote,"Mr. Green, Thank you for your note and a chance to solve this issue. I am about to get on an airplane, but will get your issue to our executive resolution team. They should be able to resolve. If you are not satisfied, please do not hesitate to contact me again. Thank you for your business. Todd XXXXX" I will be honest, I thought it was a passing of the hot potato. However, earlier this morning I received a phone call from an executive in the resolution team by the name of Diane. She was very professional. She said she was unaware of the policy change. She discussed the

Re:I'm the brick guy

[__aahlyu4518]

Thanx for clarifying an otherwise unfair (to Dell) article.

Good thing this isn't a news site otherwise they should've contacted Dell first to get their side of the sto......... Hey ! It says 'news for nerds'!!! ;-)

To all the people who are starting to shout at Dell in the rest of the thread : First people start bitchin' about Dell nog providing a Linux option.. Then Dell listens and acts in a relatively short time, and has not yet have everything 100% as it should be. And people start bitching here again. Cut 'm some slack will ya people? They are getting there. With a bad attitude, you'll have other companies think again before going the Linux way !

Re:I'm the brick guy

[AnotherCaptainTux]

I shall. For the record, this is not a screw you to Dell, I appreciate them offering Ubuntu as a preinstalled option. As a consumer, I want the same hardware offerings via the CompleteCare plan that I would receive if I had purchased a Windows machine. The people at Dell have been very friendly and professional. BTW, my apologies on the whitespace, I should have been more careful. Cheers

Re:I'm the brick guy (with whitespace)

[tknd]

My guess at the whitespace (nothing has been modified except whitespace):

This is like my third post ever on slashdot. I read it often, though. I am the guy with the brick quote. Here is the whole story to be fair to Dell.

On Friday, my laptop died. It was an Acer. The screen was damaged. Replacement cost of cracked screen is more than halfway to the cost of a new laptop. So I decide I will support the new Ubuntu Dell Laptops. I go online to Dell's Website and go to the Ubuntu page. I choose the E1505n. I upgrade to a GB of Ram, I get the Nvidia 256 MB graphics card, I get the DVD burner optical drive. So far so good. I am happy with the default processor and the screen.

Now, another driving factor is that Dell has the nifty cool complete care (tm) plan. With this bad boy, a random brick can fly through the air, hit my laptop, shatter it to threads, and Dell will cover it. Think of it more as an insurance plan than a service plan. I have a friend with 3 kids who has had to take advantage of it not once, but twice. Both times Dell took care of them no questions asked. Now, the first time the Dell laptop had XP on it...the second time..gentoo. Still, no problems here. So, I decide to get it....just in case I get burned twice.

On June 2, I get an email telling me my order has been acknowledged and I will get another email shortly giving me a order number (I also paid for next day shipping). Well, the rest of June 2 and all of June 3 goes by. No new email. I check my spam folder...nada...just the usual assortment of male enhancement and refi deals.

So on June 4 I call Dell. They can see no order...they can see they debited my account...but no order. Hmmm...confusing. Very sorry, sir. Let me talk to my supervisor, please hold. She has no explanation for the lost order, but she will reprocess the order and I will get my next day shipping for free since I lost time. YAY! But wait! When we "build" my Dell, there is no longer a Complete Care (tm) plan for Ubuntu. She puts me on hold. She find out that my order was bumped out since they changed the policy on offering Complete Care (tm) on Ubuntu Dells. Why? She puts me on hold.

Now comes the fun.
"Sir, Ubuntu is a third party software and applications come from sources not from Dell."
"Vista is a product of Dell?"
"No sir, but we have a relationship with MS."
"So you do not have a relationship with Canonical, the commercial company that sponsors Ubuntu?"
"Hold.........Yes we do, but the software for other things comes from third parties."
"So what if I buy a game for a Vista laptop from Best Buy? As that is a third party software..does that invalidate a Complete Care (tm) policy?"
"No, sir."
"What if I download an update from Microsoft to keep my Vista Current, how does that differ from an update from Ubuntu other than the fact the Ubuntu update actually helps my system?"
"I do not know sir. See, sir, Linux comes from all over the place and as such cannot be supported."
"I believe Redhat and even Microsoft differ with that opinion. I am not looking for support, that is another option I can click on another screen in your website. I am looking for protection from bricks. The laws of physics do not differ from one OS to the other...do they?"
"No Sir."
"Talking to your superior will not help my cause, do you have the phone number and email address of an executive do you?"
She gave it to me. I wrote an email. I expressed my concerns politely and professionally.

The next day-early this morning, I got a reply from a Dell Representative named Todd. Todd wrote,

"Mr. Green, Thank you for your note and a chance to solve this issue. I am about to get on an airplane, but will get your issue to our executive resolution team. They should be able to resolve. If you are not satisfied, please do not hesitate to contact me again. Thank you for your business. Todd XXXXX"

I will be honest, I thought it was a passing of the hot potato.

However, earlier this m

I'm the Ubuntu Forums guy

[MagicFab]

Hi

Actually I work for Canonical full time at their global support centre. I also happen to volunteer in the forums and I saw this post in several places. I forwarded it internally to Canonical Staff and it's been passed to Dell.

Cheers,

Fabian Rodriguez
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FabianRodriguez

Re:I'm the Ubuntu Forums guy

[Kennon]

How much do you have to weigh in order to qualify for the "FAT administrator" title at Canonical? I know that it is around 275lbs for just Fat but to rate all caps must be rough.

Warranty on Dell Ubuntu Systems Coming Back Soon

[JBatDell]

Due to an ordering system glitch during the weekend, we inadvertently removed extended warranty and CompleteCare options from our Website. We're working to get the issue resolved as quickly as possible and those options will be reinstated this afternoon. If customers ordered systems when extended warranties weren't available, they will have the option of upgrading at the original price. There will be more details on that program soon. For more details visit http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/06/05/ 17450.aspx