An Ubuntu story

[eilu]

Just a slightly annoying, slightly funny experience I had that I wanted to share:

My Epson AIO's printhead is blocked *again* so I decide to just relegate it to scanner duty and buy a cheap inkjet; I did some research and settle on an HP D2360.

I go to a local PC store (PC Gilmore, for anyone in my locale who happens to be reading this) and ask about it. This is what happened:

Salesguy: "so, what system are you using this on?"
Me: Linux
Salesguy (makes a big show of looking over the box): HP only works with Windows
Me: No, no, there's a Linux driver
Salesguy calls their Technician to verify
Technician: (condescening tone) HP works with Windows and Mac only!
Me: I know it works with Linux
(repeat cycle 2-3x)
Me: Look, just give me the printer, if it doesn't work, i'll come back tomorrow and buy the more expensive model!
*sales guy finally hands printer over*

The store has a testing area, so the technician makes a big show of opening the box (with a box cutter- he managed to shred the packaging and manuals too; fortunately the printer is fine); he plugs it onto their XP unit.

Technician (still condescending): see, in XP it's just plug-and-play. Why don't you buy an XP? Linux is so obsolete (yeah, he actually said that) blah-blah-blah-blah-blah (he sounded like a micrososft press release)

Well, the printer is now home. it works fine with Ubuntu. The punch line? I'm dual-booting and Windows still won't work with it.

[raul_]

I think XP is not ready for the desktop yet

[bastiegast]

Reading this makes me wanna But still it made me laugh

[loell]

you should've brought a livecd with you , and say it on his face, see i told you its plug and play

[eilu]

you should've brought a livecd with you , and say it on his face, see i told you its plug and play

I did bring the liveCD... he said "we don't allow people to install anything on our computers!" I said it ran off the CD, no need to install... he had a blank expression, said that wasn't possible and went back to plugging Windows. *Someone* needs a new brain.

[whynotchevron]

I was helping a friend install DSL at his house and I was calling to sign up with the DSL provider ( you know the one AT&T is trying to buy ). When the guy asked what operating system I was using, I said, "Linux." I was put on hold for five minutes, and then a supervisor came back and told me, "You can't use Linux to connect to the Internet. It's a hacker tool ! I almost messed my pants .

[skirkpatrick]

Carrying around a full install on a USB stick should impress some people

[H.E. Pennypacker]

you should've brought a livecd with you , and say it on his face, see i told you its plug and play

Yeah, you should have shown the guy that it did work, and in fact, HP is one of the most reliable manufacturers on Linux systems.

[eilu]

@Brunellus: UST

Incidentally the frist to have an online e-campus, which wopuld have been nice except they used microsoft's "standards" and code so I had to go scream at them for a week just to get it to work with the 'Fox. My mac-using friends still can't download the lecture notes (and are still screaming at the IT people) *shrug* I've basically given up trying to talk to those guys.

[Derek Djons]

Loved to read this story... it was very amusing to read.

"The guy sounded like a Microsoft press-release" LOL