Let's talk about tech support for a learning experience.

I have used Suse since 9.0. I tried mandrake on a HP ZE5385 laptop & it didn't find everything -- of course, I was a total neewb. Suse 9.0 found everything & I was off & running. I have bought all the latest Suse releases ever since & have never had to or tried tech support. I did this time and my experience was something to write home about.

In Yast there is a button to ask for tech support. All you need is a number off your Suse invoice & email address. Yast will provide a box for you to pose you problem; but the neat thing is that it will gather all the necessary files, compress them and fire them off to Suse and all you have to do is sit back and wait. This is a good feature. However...........

Here is the response that I received per my request for help:

Thank you for your enquiry to SUSE LINUX installation support.

You wrote:


>> DMESG reads:
>> ACPI: cpu0 power states: c1 (c1 c2 (c2)
>> ACPI-400 ***Warning: invalid active threshold [0]
>> ACPI: Thermal Zone [THRM] 53degC (note: this was immediately after
>> install.)

That is a problem with the ACPI support. You find the following article about that in our SUSE Support Knowledgebase within the SUSE LINUX Portal
(http://portal.suse.de/sdb/en/index.html) with the keyword "ACPI".

http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2002/10/81_acpi.html

Unfortunately, the ACPI issues is not coverd within the free installation support scope.

Regarding the terms of our free support, please read the enclosed
information brochure "Support from SUSE LINUX", which is also available
online at:

http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofes...port/index.html

However, I recommend you to join some user mailing lists and ask there your
questions. It is possible that some other users have had your problems and
could help you to fix your problem. SuSE Linux provides some of these lists.
If you wish, you can join them from:

http://www.suse.de/us/business/mailinglists.html

A detailed list of topics handled by free or advanced support can be found
at
http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofes...t_overview.html




Yours sincerely,

SUSE LINUX Support-Team



I did a similar tech support request to SAGER. I don't need to post their response; I'll paraphrase:
"We don't support Linux. How is you Winxp install running?"
I should have said, "Winxp is not running in 64-bits; If I install winxp64 beta, there's no software for it; So if I just spent 2 big ones on your 64-bit machine why won't you help me run a real 64-bit Operating System that comes complete with everything I need."

Sager would be suprised at how well my suse 9.3 x86-64 is running on their box now.

I offer this info because it seems that the Linux developers and the major Distros ( like Suse) do their systems based on the Specifications -- like the acpi spec. If it met Spec every thing would work out of the box.

If it doesn't; we are going to have to help each other.

Finally, and maybe the most important, the real Linux developers don't like to do work-arounds -- they would like for us to put pressure on the OEMs to meet Spec.