Support for Linux?

Whenever I mention, that Linux is a viable alternative to Windows in the desktop market, the comment of "but there's no support for Linux" always comes up. There is actually lots of support for Linux. In fact, for my problems, better support because the guys answering the questions/tickets in Linux are usually the experts. Where big companies, and their product support have a tier system and the first level support usually has no clue what I'm talking about.

Calling Microsoft Support:

First, I'll pick on Microsoft, only because it was the most recently mention. -- I have similar stories with Rogers, Bell, Futureshop, Staples, etc.. -- Recently I learned with the $200-350 purchase of the Windows 7 Retail you get free support from Microsoft. (well not really free your paying for it from the purchase price.) This explains the big price difference between the OEM and Retail versions.

I have two stories:

First is from several years ago. We (Lenbrook Industries) had a problem with excel, it couldn't handle a spreadsheet one of the accountants designed. When we did the calculation run, it would GPF (General Protection Fault). When I called Microsoft Support, it took me a few weeks just to convince the guy we had a problem. After that he said the only solution was to add more memory to the system. The system was a 386/486 (can't remember which) with 16M of memory, which was the max for any system at the time. The average for a windows system was 1-2M, not to mention the 640k barrier at the time. The support ticket was closed as that was the only solution Microsoft was going to offer. Needless to say we started looking at other companies products.

Note: even thought the story is old, the trend of my support experience as a customer has not changed. I only bring this up to illustrate my point below.

The second story is more recent. About a week ago I logged a ticket on Windows 7. The question is rather complex, but after 1 phone call and 6 emails and +1 week later, they still don't get the question, they keep sending me irrelevant solutions. I even sent them the blog post Ross sent me on how to accomplish the task. The question to support/customer service is how to make it legal without breaking the EULA. Again, how helpful is support?

This is a common experience for me. Any time I call support it takes weeks to three months (rogers support) just to explain the problem to them, or even convince them I have a problem. After that it's still 50/50 if they can even help me. Granted my problems are usually much more complex that the average user. However, my mom and dad call me first for any support because the feel they get no help from these companies. My dad mostly thinks the support guys are idiots. (and since I'm a support person for a large company I'm not sure if I should take offence to that)

Update: make that 2 calls. Microsoft just called while I was typing this. Their going to arrange an escalation technician call on Tuesday.

So my POINT just because their is a support network it doesn't automatically guarantee it's going to be any help to you. Most big company support networks (example: rogers and bell) are setup to handle only common questions. -- My computer won't turn on, is it plugged in, oh thanks for the help. -- Anyone who's called support and had their problem solved on the first try, good for you! Not all of us have been so lucky.

Side Note: Microsoft support desk is one of the better ones. Even thought it's taken a week just to have the techs understand, at least their chasing/calling me. I don't have to chase them. (which is really nice for a change.)

Linux Support:

With that out of the way let's talk about where you can get Linux support. First off, there is many more support people for Windows, and many more companies supporting windows. That's a given because of the +80% desktop market share. But as stated above, quantity doesn't guarantee quality. (Increases your chances.. but it's still hit and miss)

For the rest, I'm going to talk Fedora Linux here because it's what I have the entire family running. For Ubuntu support, maybe Henry can start a blog.

The first place I go to for support is the forums. http://www.linuxquestions.org is the main site I go to. I can usually get an answer to my question with in 2-24 hours. There is a really strong community there for helping out Linux users. -- now if I can only get the family to start posting questions rather than bugging me all the time --

The second place is the bugzilla. http://bugzilla.redhat.com/ Bugzilla is your direct line to the developers, contributors and administrators in charge of the Fedora project. Level of support here varies depending on the problem and area. There's also a automatic bug logging tool in Fedora 12 so if your program crashes, it packages up all the debug logs and can fire it off to your bugzilla account. These are the two places I goto for help.

For the new user there is still other places you can go for support. There's the online help pages (which I find just a useless as Microsoft's help pages, but that's just my experience) Then there is all the options listed on http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-help The online classrooms is an interesting thought.

Then for the person who wants some accountability there's the "paid" support. Companies like Redhat, Oracle, and others, you can pay a yearly subscription fee and get the same level of support that you would with any other provider.

Finally there's the "ask a friend". Most of the computer geek friends you have can support any computer. It might take them a bit longer to support you on Linux, if they've never seen it, but a computer is a computer. Both have a file system, linux is / for path names like /home/me where windows is c:\Users\me. Both have some type of menu system with programs. Both have GUI tools for managing the system. Most computer geeks can easily work through these differences to help the general users. -- Especially if the question is, how do I get on the web --

So there is plenty of support options for Linux. Makes you wonder where they get this "no support" logic? Recently I've been told that "the vast majority of "conspiracy theories" from the open source community are complete bunk" but by the same token the "no support" or "Linux isn't a viable alternative" are created from the Microsoft community and are also complete bunk.