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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."
She actually realized she had made a mistake before the computer was shipped, and called Dell. But the rep she spoke to convinced her to stick with Ubuntu anyway. It appears that he didn't suggest one of the support packages that Dell offers for their Ubuntu machines.
Another missed part of the story is that Verizon mustn't have done anything to help her before this became news (given my experience with big ISPs they don't give much help if you're using Linux, so I assume she called).
While it isn't exactly fair to expect companies to bend over backwards to help customers with what they perceive to be "exotic" setups, I wonder why, after all these years, they don't at least have a list of local LUGs to which they could direct Linux users. Had someone at least got her in touch with them, I bet the problems could have been resolved.
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr. Seus
It's a local tech college. They're pretty good as local tech colleges go, but they're as Microsoft-centric as anywhere else.
Long ago, I served time on the help desk at the library there. Mac OSX was still relatively new, and the library had gotten some shiny new Macs in with OSX preinstalled (of course, PCs outnumbered Macs about 10:1). For some reason, all of them were reinstalled with OS 9 a few days after they came in. One of our regular Mac users was very irate at us, but of course us help desk folks had nothing to do with it.
Not a typewriter
Most likely she asked questions like "can I do papers in Ubuntu" and they told her how.
Dell is making a play to be a major Ubuntu reseller on Netbooks. Their tech support has to learn how to provide end user support for Ubuntu. Not just say "use windows".
And frankly this story doesn't smell right to me.
1) You can't "accidentally" find an Ubuntu Dell.
2) Dell support would NEVER say "you don't want windows, Ubuntu works better for you".
3) She took FIVE MONTHS to complain
It's a fake.
It's not so much a fake as a woman rationalizing her decision to drop out of college - "It's not my fault I couldn't make it, I got a bad computer!"
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I have a Verizon FiOS network, with 128 IP's, that we're running a small hosting business on. There's a small problem on the line, so I asked for a field tech to come out and replace their outside box. No big deal, just come, swap out your slightly defective unit for a good one, so it doesn't become a bigger problem in the near future. We're getting the occasional CRC error on the uplink, and have already swapped the equipment on our side.
They asked what OS I was running. "Well, about a dozen Linux machines, and a half dozen Win2k/S2k3 machines."
They asked "So are you running XP or Vista"
I had to start over. "This is a business FiOS line. We're using it for a small hosting business. We have many machines. We have 128 IP's from you because of that. "
Then they asked me which of their routers we are using. {sigh} Their routers are crap. They provide us with a Cat5 ethernet cable from their demarc outside. That goes directly into a Cisco Catalyst 2924XL-EN.
"Oh, if you're not using our router, we can't help you. Maybe you can call Cisco."
I blew up inside, but very politely told them that I am a Cisco Certified Network Administrator, and I have worked as a higher level Cisco Engineer for the past 12 years. I'll be more than happy to help you with this matter. By evaluating the errors, there appears to be a failure on your side of the link, which would be your demarc on the wall. If you could be kind enough to have a field technician come out and swap the demarc, I would be very happy.
That got me put on hold. He came back, apparently with one of their "network engineers" on chat with him. He'd type what I said, wait for a response, and then read it back to me. Over the next half hour, the engineer finally told me that it was obviously a routing issue somewhere on the Internet, and I should run traceroutes to see where it is, but it's definitely outside of Verizon's control. I told the CSR that was still on the phone with me echoing the "network engineer" responses, that the "network engineer" was a complete blithering idiot, who wouldn't be able to diagnose a network problem to save his life. There's no way in hell that a CRC errror comes from anywhere but either the two endpoints of a cable, one of which is my switch, and the other their demarc, or the cable in between. They made it clear that the cable is property of Verizon, or I'd swap that too.
Ahhh, now I'm worked up. I'm going to start calling them again. It's been several weeks of trying to get them to address this. I'm tempted to hit it with a stun gun, just so it'll be completely down, and they can come out and fix it. Too bad I don't own a stun gun. :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.