[ale] Sub $250 PCs

[Geoffrey]

Benjie wrote:
>   In the 15 years that I have been building PC's its always been the case
> that pc shops could care less about what you are going to do with the pc,
> they are only interested in a sale.  Not to justify any shop's behavior, but
> their margins have always been pretty thin,

All the more reason to treat the customer right.  I've done business 
with two shops locally that treat me a whole lot better then Ginstar.  I 
don't care if you say good morning to me, just serve my needs and I'll 
get out of your way.  The guy at Ginstar had an attitude that is 
unforgivable in any business environment.  Not to mention the fact that 
I have probably forgotten more about hardware and software then he'll 
ever know.

> and the personel are usually
> pretty inexperienced and not paid very well.  The chances of finding someone
> who knows or cares about anything other than Windows is pretty slim.  I mean
> think about, if you were an underpaid tech who developed any skill, why
> stick around for crummy pay?  Move to a better job at the first chance.

Lack of skill or knowledge is no reason to NOT extend common courtesy to 
a customer.  I don't expect them to ask to see pictures of my family, 
but simply treating me as another human being would be nice and is 
expected.  Personally, I don't care how they treat me, they won't hurt 
my feelings.  They lose in the end because they lose my business and 
hopefully others because they've read these posts.

>   For the past 8 years that I have worked with Linux, I have always had to
> take hardware into my own hands, knowing well in advance of purchase what
> parts would work with Linux and that I would have to assemble them myself.

I do the same.  In the situation at Ginstar, I had simply stopped in 
because I was on that part of town, so I'd not done the usual 
assessment.  Certainly no reason for the treatment I received.

> PC shops will gladly sell you anything, and if they assemble it, they will
> gladly substitute what ever they have on hand under the assumption that if
> it runs some form of Windows, that is all that is needed.  Experience has
> taught me that even though everyone in the PC world knows what Linux is,
> patience and a good understanding of PC hardware are still two very
> important skills for getting what you need.

I've got the hardware understanding and it appears that it was Ginstar 
who did not have the patience..

>   Regardless of what you may think about Linspire, I am glad to see PC' s
> running it showing up in more places.  I think it is a positive sign for
> linux, even if most of the Linspire PC's go home and have Win98 installed on
> them.  Mainstream business still counts them as a Linux sale,  and who
> knows, maybe some people are using Linspire.

I agree, but it's way down on the list of distros I'd use.  I don't know 
if they still log you in as root, but if they do, that's only going to 
give Linux a bad name when the user screws up the system.

-- 
Until later, Geoffrey