Don't buy HP computers

[M. Fioretti]

On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 16:32:26 PM -0400, Dirk Freitag wrote:

> Personally I think that everyone who has answered this so far has
> missed the mark.  First, who cares if HP supports Linux or not?
> They have to support the hardware regardless of what OS is on the
> computer, because the OS has absolutely nothing to do with the
> physical quality or reliability of the hardware.

That *may* be true in theory. In practice, no hardware vendor works
that way, because testing and/or customer assistance costs would
skyrocket.

> Second, even if HP *did* have support options for Linux, they would
> pale in comparison to the online support communities located on
> message boards, user lists and IRC chat rooms.

True but irrelevant in many important cases. Many businesses will
simply not buy stuff which is only supported informally by some
unknown folks half a planet away. Many IT policies explicitly forbid
doing so.

This has nothing to do, of course, with buying or not HP products and
why, or with which free online support is better, Linux or Windows.
It's just that, to my best knowledge, none of those two statements
matches reality, so they shouldn't be used to come to any conclusion.

	Marco
	Digital activism: http://mfioretti.com
-- 
Your own civil rights and the quality of your life heavily depend on how
software is used *around* you:            http://digifreedom.net/node/84