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Woman Claims Ubuntu Kept Her From Online Classes
stonedcat writes "A Wisconsin woman has claimed that Dell computers and Ubuntu have kept her from going back to school via online classes. She says she has called Dell to request Windows instead however was talked out of it. Her current claim is that she was unaware that she couldn't install her Verizon online disk to access the Internet, nor could she use Microsoft Word to type up her papers."
At the end of the article is a link to a follow-up by the assistant news director. It's not quite an apology, but it demonstrates that someone in the Ubuntu community got through to someone at the news station: http://addins.wkowtv.com/blogs/behindthenews/
I don't agree. Literally anyone who had even a slight clue about her predicament would have been able to load windows on the system. contrary to the article this doesn't void your dell guarantee. This person chose to leave school instead of getting her problem fixed, which, in my opinion is simply an excuse for her mental shortcomings, then again if she were intelligent in the least she could have gotten her internet connection to work in the first place.
You've obviously never used Verizon DSL. Their system requires a login/password which is generated via their Windows-only software when you're setting things up. Once you have that you no longer need Windows to connect to the internet, but you do need to that once to get the system & modem set up.
Seriously. No joke.
I presume you can set that stuff up over the phone if you have a Mac or something, but that's probably non-obvious for someone who accidentally orders a Linux laptop.
And, also, Firefox cannot necessarily handle all of her "browsing needs". It's not always Firefox's fault, but there's a reason I have IE Tab set up for a handful of sites and it's not because I'm a web developer.
I have used Verizon wireless usb adapters on my Mac without VZaccess. I just plugged it in and it worked. My understanding is Linux has similar drivers available and it just works on there as well. VZaccess is not required.
The Comcast CD that came with my Internet self-install officially supported Windows and OSX, so I could install it on my laptop at least -- or so I thought until I tried. It also specifically required Internet Explorer 5 for Mac, a product not available even through the MS website anymore.
Of course, the whole situation was moot. Those install CD-ROMs aren't required to use the modem. I just called Comcast and told them to activate my modem, and I was online in minutes.
Verizon DSL is similarly not limited to Windows. The article actually says that Verizon supports Ubuntu, and that they are going to send over tech support.
This really shouldn't have made news anywhere, it basically amounts to "Woman has trouble setting up her Internet connection, complains to the press before receiving support from her ISP."