[ltp] Re: lenovo support for linux

[Shannon McMackin]

Florian Manschwetus wrote:
> Am 04.08.2009 17:13, schrieb Shannon McMackin:
>> Florian Manschwetus wrote:
>>> Today I've had a call from Peter Reinhart (Lenovo Germany)
>>> He told me that lenovo gives absolutely NO support for linux related
>>> trouble with T60 or any other model which wasn't sold with linux
>>> preloaded. Furthermore the won't give any support for any thinkpad
>>> model used with a different OS than those available as preinstalled.
>>>
>>> Furthermore he told me that my specific t60 is still not replaced in
>>> complete, after 3 or 4 mainboard replacements, because the mainboard
>>> was replaced every time for a different reason. Now the current
>>> smaller problems will be repaired, than I could pick it up.
>>> Additionally my 3 year warranty was timed out during the time it was
>>> in repair center, waiting for a decision from lenovo, he told me that
>>> he will ask someone for some warranty extension, maybe there is a
>>> small chance.
>>>
>>> Nice outcome after four month and a lot of additional work on my side.
>>> And every time we have had progress it was based on my initiative.
>>> Yeah really that is for what I have paid 2000 euro (student promotion,
>>> no idea what the real price would have been for this one).
>>>
>>> So guys, no we are on our own, lenovo won't give us any help for
>>> problems aren't reproducible with the PRELOADED windows, yes the
>>> preloaded one this was pointed out from Peter Reinhart.
>>>
>>> One really disappointed customer,
>>> Florian
>>>
>>> p.s. currently I see now real chance to get back a trustworthy
>>> platform for further work on the sys-kernel/thinkpad-sources stuff,
>>> sorry, but until my TP runs fine again, I can't really test the patch
>>> composition, so I won't set something online.
>>>
>> Does that really surprise you?
>>
>> I don't expect any hardware vendor to offer support on an OS they didn't
>> ship pre-loaded on the machine. It's a cost factor. You may not like it,
>> but that's how it is. You can learn to mask your OS based on what you
>> say to them on the phone. This is what I've done, but all my problems
>> have been mechanical on the ThinkPads I've used.
>>
>> I work for IBM and I can't even open a ticket on a problem with my
>> ThinkPad unless it's a clear-cut hardware problem. Everything with Linux
>> is a community-based support effort just like it is out in the real
>> world. Companies can't afford to hire the skills or train their
>> employees in a support center on the variety of Linux distros out there.
>>
>> I don't know what kind of issues led to the replacement of your planar
>> every time, but it must have been drastic. Unfortunately, if it was a
>> systemic issue that wasn't easy to diagnose with Lenovo, then that's why
>> your experience was poor.
> The bad point is the fact that my T60 is one of the early ones, based on 
> the CoreDuo not on the Core2Duo. It currently looks to me, that there 
> are some elemental issues with the CoreDuo chipsets, just maybe some 
> developer at ati or where ever even missed some special difference 
> between theses two CPU generations, which are often mistakenly put in 
> same bucket, despite the huge differences between them.
> 
> Florian
>>
>> I don't like it, you don't like it and nobody likes it. It's just the
>> way it is. ThinkPads are one of the best laptops out there and if you
>> want to use Linux, you're doing a lot of self-support...
>>
> 
> 
I have not heard of any major issues other than fan-related for the T60. 
  Unfortunately, I have a T61 and that's an upgrade from a T41.  Any 
time I experience heat issues on my T61 it's usually caused by an unruly 
app that pegs my CPU and after time I suffer video degradation from the 
heat.  I've had to clean out the fan and heat sinks twice in the past 6 
months.  I have colleagues with T60s, but they are mostly using XP.