Paul Tansom wrote:
>
>>> As for RH support, I've had generally poor experiences. Their
>>> website is simply awful, and the support ranges from outright wrong
>>> answers to competent. I haven't experienced anything with a wow
>>> factor, but to be fair I've only used RH support three or four
>>> times.
>>>
>>>
>> It isn't that bad and similar to other providers.
>>
>
> I've not had major experience, but about the same as I've had of
> Microsoft support. Sadly Microsoft wins hands down on my tiny sample.
>
> I've spoken to Microsoft, who I haven't paid (bar the OS cost) and
> spoken to someone who was helpful and (amazingly) told me how to
> uninstall IE (which of course you can't do!) and apparently used and
> liked Linux. I can't remember off hand what the actual problem was, but
> removing IE was part of the solution somehow (in order to reinstall it).
>
> Having spoken to Red Hat support (who had been paid for a years
> subscription and support) and been told that since my hardware wasn't on
> the certified list (which at the time consisted about 80 models from a
> few major vendors) they wouldn't help me, was not impressive. That
> should have been made clear at purchase, and if you are selling a boxed
> piece of software you should be supporting a wider variety of hardware
> than just 80 models (if you're going to just support those, limit
> yourself to selling through the vendors of those machines). There were
> three issues in this case, one of which came down to the ide-scsi
> setting in the lilo boot parameters, and the other was an upgrade to OOo
> which seriously broke it (something I've not seen on Debian stable). I
> can't remember the last one off hand, it may have been to do with
> getting support for the nVidia chipset sorted (not just graphics, but
> sound, network, etc. as well).
>
Red Hat don't have the resources to support every bit of kit out there
so you shouldn't have so surprised. If you read M$ license you'll also
find a million get out clauses. The big difference is the M$ monopoly
(or Windows Tax) ensure they have the money to pay for a huge support
team. We've all paid for it so they are not going to be too fussy about
spending time with your problem.
>
> Marketing wise Linux is probably doing better in the big business arena.
> I guess this is where the money is, but whereas the value of the cost
> savings for small businesses could be much more significant, most seem
> happy to stick with Windows because of the perception of ease of use and
> 'everybody uses it' and 'people are familiar with it'. In practise it
> wouldn't be that difficult to pick up on the differences between Windows
> and Linux or MS Office and OOo, and ease of use can also equate to ease
> of allowing someone who doesn't know what they are doing to do it badly
> - as well as making it more difficult for someone who does know what
> they are doing to do it well!
>
Agreed. It is really about getting people to try Linux and make them
realise it doesn't have two heads. Big business are already using Linux
so increasing that market is relatively easy.
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