Frustration

[Dr A V Le Blanc]

I wrote:
> Programs which are supposed to run under Linux should not be
> dynamically linked against libraries from one or other distribution.
> They must not assume the existence of utilities which exist only
> on one or other distribution.

On Fri May 11 2007 at 10:03:43 -0400, "Ben Scott" <dragonhawk at gmail.com> wrote:
>   Here, I don't think you are being realistic.  System utilities are
> always going to be highly dependent on the configuration of the
> environment.  There are lots of reasons for this.  Could Dell do a
> better job in making their tools more independent of the specific
> configuration?  Yes.  But it's not as easy as you seem to imply.

I think I should clarify what I was trying to say:

(1)  Things that everyone may need to do, such as firmware upgrades,
     need to be distributed in a way that is OS and vendor neutral.
     Distribute a compressed ISO image or floppy image and explain
     how to write this on various platforms as necessary.  But please
     don't expect me to be able to run .exe files, unless of course
     you supply the floppy or CD with the complete environment, or
     just say 'put this on a DOS floppy'.  Someone at Dell is making
     a bad assumption.

(2)  Similarly diagnostics must be available in a vendor neutral
     form.  If you read my message, I mention that Dell's user
     support seem to be unable to provide me with a diagnostic
     that I can run on my machine.  I'm willing to boot from a
     floppy or CD, but Dell don't seem to be able to supply me
     with a floppy or CD image.  Dell's user support appear to be
     lacking information that might help many of their customers.

(3)  Someone wrote suggesting a live CD, omsa-51-live.iso.  I
     tried this, and found it does not work with Dell's virtual
     media CD drive.  This seems to me to be a bug, since quite
     a number of live CDs _do_ work with Dell's virtual media CD
     drive.  Had this CD worked, it might have solved my difficulty,
     assuming Dell Support knew about it as well.

(4)  Someone else suggested another live CD, which I have not yet
     had the opportunity to try.

(5)  I have never wished to suggest, much less demand, that any
     utility distributed by Dell run in any environment; of course
     this is silly.   What I think is sillier is that Dell Support
     are asking me to run one utility after another, without being
     aware that every one of them has problems in my environment,
     and perhaps in your environment.  This is a different kind of
     failure in user support from that in (2):  there they don't
     appear to know about tools; here they don't appear to know
     the limits of the tools which they recommend.

> Dell has a certain set of configurations they support.  It's not
> possible to support everything.  Could Dell do a better job proving
> configuration-independent tools?  Yes.  But can they support
> everything?  No.  And as a Dell customer, I don't want them to try.
> That's a financial black hole.  I don't want my suppliers making bad
> business decisions, or they'll stop being good suppliers.

(6)  One configuration they need to support is, for example, a live
     CD, one that works on their hardware without assuming anything
     about what you have on your disk.  This isn't a bad business
     decision, it's a good one.  The technology is there, and it's
     fairly easy to use.

I would suggest the following steps, which look awfully like good
business sense to me:

(1)  Floppy and CD images should be released as images, not only
     as .exe files which write images.

(2)  Diagnostics need to be made available in a form which will
     run on any machine; that is, for example, on a live CD.
     If such diagnostics exist, Dell's user support people need
     to know about them.

(3,4)  Live CDs and floppies need to work on Dell's virtual media,
     and should be tested in this way.

(5)  When Dell's user support people know about a possibly useful
     tool, they should also know a little about its limitations;
     for example, it only works on Windows, or only on RHEL, or it
     is only known to work on RHEL.

(6)  Satisfying these things isn't hard or bad for business.

Ben also complains that I should be complaining to Dell support, not
whinging on this technical group.  First, I would like to point out
that I have complained -- fruitlessly -- to Dell support.  Moreover,
at least two people on this list have made positive (technical)
suggestions which might help.  Finally, there are Dell technical
people on this list who do listen, and who might be able to help
all of us in the future.  Many of us have complained in the past
and have not been heard; I'm afraid I think we need to go on
complaining.

Thanks to all the people who sent useful suggestions, on the list
as well as off.

     -- Owen