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NewEgg: Installing Linux Breaks Laptop
Rick Zeman writes "According to the normally geek-friendly online store Newegg , installing Linux Mint is tantamount to breaking your new Lenovo laptop. Is it the purchaser's fault for not restoring the laptop to its original state of Windows-y goodness, or is NewEgg being too dogmatic trying to enforce a term that doesn't seem to exist?"
I think maybe we've all become a little too comfortable with Linux (or any other open source software) being generally accepted and for the most part works as expected. We've forgotten the fact that essentially using Linux does void your warranty in most cases. Distributions like Linux Mint do a good job of hiding all the warnings that you used to see when trying to get your drivers working, but they are still there. Those who would configure X back in the 90s probably remember the warnings and stories about how the wrong settings could physically damage your monitor. From a manufacturer's point of view, I can't say I blame them for having this stance. Many open source drivers are built by reverse engineering the hardware, not by working together with the manufacturer like on commercial operating systems such as Windows. There are definately mistakes that could be made by the driver developers that would physically ruin the hardware or run it outside its normal specifications.
Everyone using Linux, FreeBSD, ReactOS or Haiku or any other open source/community built OS where the drivers are written through reverse engineering needs to understand this because sometimes it does come back to bite.
Why did this person get marked as troll? That is pretty much SOP on the "I don't like it" returns, they charge a restock fee and it ends up sold as a return if they don't send it back to the factory and have it refurbed. heck best buy has a website dedicated to selling returns at marked down prices so i don't see why newegg wouldn't do a similar practice.
In the end this seems like a piece of trolling because you can bet your last dollar it don't have a damned thing to do with the OS being Linux, unless anybody here thinks they'd accept some new Windows 7 netbook if I sent it back with XP pro installed instead? We ALL know that when you return something you try to send it back as close to how you got it as possible.
And frankly the buyer in TFA was being a bit of a dumbass anyway. If you actually wanted supported hardware how many times have we heard "Well just buy it from a Linux dealer"? Its not like there is a shortage of Linux laptop dealers ATM, so basically the person in TFA got the lower price thanks to the total bullshit "Windows Tax" (which if it is WinHome or Starter the crapware makes it free and nobody is buying enough linLaptops to make it cheaper to produce than cranking out Windows machines) so this person was giving MSFT a sale for an OS they didn't want to get the lower prices and got bit in the ass. maybe if more people actually bought from Linux dealers instead of being selfish little jerks there would be enough demand for Linux that more places would actually carry it?
But that would ruin a perfectly good trolling article and a ton of "M$ Suxorz!" posts to rack up the page views, can't have that now can we? ;-)
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Torrents of Windows disks should never ever be trusted
Windows itself should never be trusted. Anything of value should be done on UNIX, whether that Linux, BSD, or OSX.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
even though it's stupid it's always been like this.
Acer refused to do warranty work on my laptop due to linux voiding their warranty I was told... and I had purchased an extended 2 year warranty!
another funny one is the home button on my ipod didn't want to work sometimes you'd have to press it 10 times or so to get it to come on.
I brought my ipod touch to store totally forgetting it was jailbroken, they smiled and said there was nothing they can do, they will not touch jailbroken devices, even if it's a hardware issue.
The guy even told me he wouldn't sell me any replacement parts knowing my ipod was jailbroken now. and showed me the clause that states jailbreaking voids all warranties, extended or otherwise.
I told Acer on the phone I would reinstall windows, but the foreign piece of shit told me it was too late, I had admitted to not having windows on the laptop and it's now on my "record" so my warranty was henceforth terminated.
you never get to speak with an american when you call these places, you always talk to some 7/11 slurpy indian or some other towel head camel jockey who can barely speak english.
Acer has no americans unfortunately I escalated and spoke to supervisors, managers, etc. nothing helped my extended warranty was terminated and even if I installed windows again they had marked my record as admitting to running linux.
Linux although a great OS, if you deal with warranties then Linux is the worse Virus ever and will get extended warranties, contracts, and all instantly terminated if you ever admit to it on phone.
So now I don't run linux anymore... just so i can keep my warranty, when my warranties are over then I'll run linux