[lug] The tide's turning perhaps... :-)

[chris]

On Sun, Sep 29, 2002 at 02:05:36PM -0600, svq wrote:
> "D. Stimits" wrote:
> 
> > Many places won't honor their warranty if the o/s is not installed from
    ^^^^

(not all)


> > their disks. Of course the owner could probably re-install windows from
> > the store disks if returning it. It is funny that many of these
> > retailers will not even honor the warranty if another version of windows
> > is installed...even the same type of windows installed from a CD not of
> > their own can remove all service aid in the warranty.
> >
> > D. Stimits, stimits AT attbi.com
> >
> 
> So if I were to buy a new laptop, it would be useless to buy the extended
> warrenty if I were planning to install Linux as soon as I got it?

i've never had a warranty like this.  i've never bought a computer in
colorado though.  just ask before you buy, is my advice.  i know that
ibm for example will certainly fix a bad HD no matter what is on it, in
one of their laptops.  (happened to a friend of mine).

from personal experience, apple certainly doesn't care, though the tech
on the other end of the warranty line was a little surprised when i told
him "none" for what version of MacOS i was running on that powerbook.
they still shipped me a new power brick/cord when mine went out.

what this really shows up is that it might make more sense for a tech-savvy
person to "build their own"--i've never bought a new *part* from any retailer
that didn't have a >=1 year warranty, regardless of use, intended and actual.
and i can tell what's wrong with my computer (memtest86, bonnie,
dnetc+lm_sensors, kernel messages, etc), so when there's bad memory i just
send it back.  it helps to find vendors that either don't have time/energy
to contest your findings or that believe in your expertise...but i buy all
my low-cost stuff from whoever's on top of pricewatch and have done a few
returns-for-new-same-part without trouble.

YMMV.