Matt's Linux Blog

As you might have guessed, I had Ubuntu running on my old laptop. It is two years old now — bought it in May 2005, along with a two year service plan. In January, the USB ports died (motherboard issue, I guess), but since I was in school, I waited until last Saturday to bring it to BestBuy. I take it in, along with my PCMCIA USB card. I demonstrate quite obviously that a USB memory card worked in the PCMCIA card, but not the onboard ports. The tech simply asks me: "What version of Windows is that!?" I smelled problems.

I explained to him that I was running Ubuntu, which is a version of Linux, and I no longer have my Windows disks. That wasn't good enough for him. He explained to me that it was my responsibility to keep track of software, etc. I get the manager over, a process which took about fifteen minutes. He affirmed the poor tech's analysis, suggesting I call Gateway to get the disks. My warranty expires Thursday, so I wasn't about to wait for Gateway to send me disks. I suggested that they take the laptop and run their test suite (which the manager admitted was Linux-based) on it; he assured me that as long as they got the laptop into the shop before the warranty was over, the repairs would be covered.

Thus began the rather straightforward (but time-consuming) process of checking the laptop into their computer system. As I am about to leave, I mentioned that my power cord was flaky; he opened another ticket and told me to call 1-888-BEST-BUY. I did not at all expect this to be covered under warranty. He then offered me a $100 data backup service, which I declined, suggesting "You people couldn't do the backup anyway." Nope. I was corrected: they do have technicians who can use Linux to save files. Why can't these same technicians repair my laptop? Because the repair centers are somewhere on the West Coast, and those repair centers require the "original software." After this two-hour process of scaling the support tree, I can finally leave, without laptop or much hope of repair. But at least they'll ship me a free power supply.

I called Gateway immediately when I got home, and I ordered a set of recovery disks for $20. My manufacturer's warranty was only one year, so there was no way for them to justify reversing that charge in the computer — or so they claim. They shipped it FedEx 2-day; it should be here tomorrow.

About six hours later, I received a phone call: BestBuy had tested my laptop, and the onboard USB ports were indeed defective. Now they just need me to bring the Windows disks in. I am taking them in tomorrow (assuming they are delivered), so let's cross our fingers.

Labels: bestbuy