Asus anti-Linux? Hmm....

[Lone Wolf]

I did a search on the forums and did not find this... I hope it is not a repeat. I read on the internet the following story and found it to be disturbing. I have never bought from Asus, but after reading it, I will definitely NOT be buying any MB from them.

http://www.mozillaquest.com/Linux04/..._Story-01.html

IMHO, any decent computer savvy pc builder/user should boycott them until they change their position.

[nak-1]

I bought an ASUS motherboard and it came with linux drivers for both the onboard ethernet and the onboard soundcard. Never use the soundcard because I don't use it as a desktop machine, onboard nic works fine.

The person who wrote this article has a very clear agenda for linux. At no point does the article make clear that this is more than a specific issue with a specific motherboard when using a 2.6 kernel.

The conversation reported by the OEM could represent nothing more than a bad customer service experience with a companies call centre, which happens all too often.

They report that they sent their complaint:

On 30 June 2004, we sent a copy of the above narrative to Rick Allen at Asus, a person we were told by another person at Asus is the media contact for Asus. We asked Asus via Rick Allen for its comments and response to the narrative.

The level of explanation here does not lend me much confidence in their proffessionalism. I'm sure that Asus does have a mdeia contact and I'm sure he has a proper title. I'm sure that this information is freely available. So why bring an unassociated, unknown third party into the description. Good follow up on that contact there then.....

Whilst there is definately evidence of a crap customer service experience, there is certainly no justification of the conclusion:

It is painfully clear from the narrative that Asus refuses to provide hardware support for Linux and support for Linux users. The instant problem is with an onboard interface whose function easily can be provided by an adapter card. Nevertheless, it just as easily could have been a problem with a core motherboard service thus rendering the motherboard fatally incompatible with the Linux operating system.

But it wasn't a problem with the "core motherboard service" and it wasn't fatally incompatible with linux. Some unecessary speculation here I think.

I would have been much more sympathetic with this person if he had backed up his claims with some hard evidence.

On the other hand I couldn't really care less whether or not Asus decides to support linux or not, if they don't I will just buy someone else's product.