Some of you may have read the help posts in the laptop and or hardware forums, so I'll make the explanation short.

When Suse 9.0 came out, it became quickly apparant to many laptop users, and even some desktop users, that something was wrong. Soundcards and systems that worked perfectly well in Suse 8.2, suddenly responded sluggishly, with poor system perfomance, and litteraly no sound capabilites.

Pro users sent off their requests for support, stating the cards/systems had worked find in 8.2, and recieved a simple reply.

"SuSE does not include Acpi and or Sound related issues in its installation support" And then in some cases a suggestion to upgrade to better support by paying an extra fee. Having already spent $80 on the pro version, not many would opt to pay even more just to possibly get it working.

Well, today, after 2 frustrated weeks of installing drivers, unintalling features, removing options, I managed to get the sound card working in my laptop with a relatively simple fix of installing an old suse kernel on top of the new one, and changing 1 file name. (initrd.shipped to initrd).

So basically, SuSE sent of a generic "We wont help you" reply to everyone, for a problem that could have been fixed in 5 minutes with a patch on their update site.


The address to write to is "support@suse.com" If any of users who've had troubles would like to tell them what you think of their support. I've already sent my email, and will definately not be paying them for any more of their distro's if this is the kind of help we get for being loyal customers.

Thank you for reading. Maybe someone could bump this up every now and then so more see it?


Thanks.

That's one reason I wouldn't pay for support. At home that is. If someone was running a high-end server then they may want to pay for top of the line support.

Most things can be learned from trial and error. It feels good to know you managed to fix it yourself. Of course it's good to have books, tutorials, google and LinuxQuestions.org They are probably just about as fast as "official" support.

P.S you might also want to try irc. irc.freenode.net is a good server and may have a channel related to SuSE. At least they have a #linuxhelp

Yep. I fixed it myself. I let them know, and I let others know how to do it too. Just wanted more people to know what kind of "support" they have. Not taking the time to notice a 5 minute fix when they could have.

First of all, I'd like to say... "WHAT"

How exactly can a topic on Suse which has no forum be more appropriate there?... anyway

The plot thickens... Now, there's a "bug fix" patch for the kernel on suse's yast update. DO NOT INSTALL IT... gah.. Now not only does sound not work, but the mouse, USB in general, idebus.. nvidia drivers.. everythings screwed up. Such a wonderful bug fix this is...

Let me quote the description of the distribution forum. This forum is for Distribution specific questions.

Just because there isn't a Suse specific forum doesn't mean your thread/post goes in the Linux - General forum, which makes it more suitable in the Distribution forum since you are talking specifically about one distro.

Regards.

Do yourself a favor & drop SusE...they are/have/will go the way of Red Hat.

I figured out before I picked my first (and only) distro that if a company's heart was aimed at the commercial market, then they weren't going to be much fun to use for my OS...and their heart was -not- going to be for the desktop user.

The commercial market -deliberately- does not want certain things to be well supported.

...they want people concentrating on business; not surfing the internet or listening to mp3s...etc.

Of all the distros out there, the ones I have no wish to tryout are the commercial ones...and this include (now) even Lindows.

Mandrake is one of the top 10 of the internet server market...so it can't be all as bad as the snobs say.

Right now both Gentoo and Slackware are interesting me.

My experience with Debian was like being initiated into a cult...(let's please leave this for another thread.)

EDIT: BTW, when I began this message, the thread was still in "General" according to my browser. (cached)

Hey, I spent almost $200 for SUSE 9 Pro for AMD64 (they only ship to asia by fedx at $60!)

I did this because I am new to the 64 bit world and wanted some "installation help" If I got in a bind. (Promised as a feature of the package)

Got the disk, and discovered SUSE would not find the sata drives. Seems it does not support the VIA 8xxx chipset! Great, a machine with no disks.

Meanwhile, the Mandrake 9.2 for AMD64 BETA I got for free DOES find my disks just fine.

So, I send a request for the "free installation help" I paid for.

NO REPLY FOR TEN DAYS

Then this

QUOTE
Sir, you can install on SATA device using the Manual installation loading the module for your device, and start the installation.

Unfortunately, the installation on SATA device is not covered within the free installation support scope.

Regarding the terms of our free support, please read the enclosed information brochure "Support from SUSE LINUX", which is also available online at:

http://www.suse.de/en/support/inst_support/index.html

In addition, we offer a charged support service, the Advanced Support, that can handle a lot of topics which go beyond the scope of our free support.

You can find more information on this service at

http://www.suse.de/en/private/suppor.../advanced.html

A detailed list of topics handled by free or advanced support can be found at http://www.suse.de/en/private/suppor..._overview.html

--
Best Regards,

Your SuSE Support-Team
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

THANKS VERY MUCH!

Mr. SUSE, there IS NO module for VIA in your disto so how can I load it?

Suffice to say, I've had it with SUSE. I'm installing Mandrake BETA 9.2 and tossing the SUSE package in the garbage pail.

My loss US$180 and a lot of hours screwing with it.

Before we all go and bash Suse ( a very well respected entity in the Linux world) for their support there are a few things to consider.

They explicitly describe what support they will and will not provide for each level of purchased support.

From a liability standpoint they are unable to troubleshoot installation of devices which the manufacturer refuses to provide linux support for. I understand bunchow's frustrations, but the 180.00 US spent on his/her software license isn't going to cover the replacement fee for blown and burnt hardware when the support team tells users to "insert whatever here" and their hardware goes poof.

The distribution is designed to install on a wide variety of general hardware, which means it may or may not install perfectly on specific hardware. As a linux user you are almost expected to optimize your system/kernel/device drivers to suit your specific needs. Trust me plug and pray doesn't work 100% on ANY OS.

Before the flame war begins, let me say I am not trying to stick up for Suse, nor am I some Suse zealot. Personally I bundle Suse in the same bin as Red-Hat, Mandrake and Lindows. Great software,but designed more for the entry level user with entry level hardware.

As for the support tech's, I spent many years in electronics hardware development and have worked hand in hand with customer support many times. These guys really do care for the most part. Be easy on them with your email's fella's.

varFlame = 1

I used to be a tech support engineer, I would never bash one. They can only follow instructions on what to support and how quickly.

I like SUSE, thats why I chose to buy it.

It's not like I have some bizzare hardware setup. ALL m-boards for the AMD64 Althon use SATA controller chips, most SI or VIA.

I fully appreciate that getting modules ready for a new device may take time. Why could'nt thay say that rather than "oh you want support on THAT? PAY MORE LOOT THEN?"

This kind of attitute just makes technical minded geeks like me just want to skip registering and expecting any support and fixing it myself. And not paying for the software but downloading it free. (yes, it is on their ftp for free download.)

If I go ahead with SUSE I have to "retire" 2 brand new 80 gig SATA drives I just bought and use some old IDE drives from my junk box until they get this solved.

The fact that Mandrake 9.2 beta for AMD64 worked on first install without any tweaking at all proves that there ARE modules out there to make these drives work.

I'm sure with the new owners coming things have to change. As bad as Novell has been they were never quite this bad.

bunchow - first thank you for the well spoken and nonflamish reply

I agree that your hardware isn't "kooky" or bizzarro. Also that if one distro can support it, then the other should as well. I guess the best thing to ask is WHY the hardware engineers at Suse didn't include generic support for SATA devices. And I'm sure one of them would be more than happy to correspond with ya.


I just try to look out for the poor guy that has to read all those "your support options suck" emails that threads like this usually entice.

Come on!
SuSE is NOT that bad...

I do feel for you and for the 180$...
But you can't really expect them to help you for free with a Q' that's that complicated...

You prolly didn't read the support terms, like the support guy's email suggested.
So please don't blame them, you should have known that for greater level support you have to pay.

While linux is free, its really hard for a company to work without money... you can't really expect them to give free support... unless its a simple problem.

I think SuSE is great.
Its just not perfect yet, no distro is...

I'm not trying to flame either... I really do understand your point of view.

thanks for that

As a not even really entry level user; I upgraded to SuSE 9.0 because there were some things that I couldn't get to work [like getting updates via modem- that program crashed every time so the OS never got better] When I first got SuSE 8.1 their support was for 60 days and it took 60 days and 4 emails to fix one problem.
I then found out with the upgrade there was no 'free' support, and unfortunately it no longer sees my mouse [without a cludge] won't connect to the internet [without a extra two kludges] and can't find my USB printer [even though it shows during setup].

So I got the wrong end of the stick and my real question has to go to distro new thread but I have learned in the year of working with SuSE that I need less of what a 'complete' distro has and more help.

I also learned that I spend money too easily.

Both of these are worth something.
j

I wouldn't hit it out so much with poor SuSE, mainly the argument here is what they're charging and what they're delivering. I'd rather discuss the PROS and CONS of this distro in comparison to others, namely Mandrake and Redhat. I mean there's always the option of downloading it and giving it a shot. If you're happy buy it, if not try another. Personally I find SuSE 8.2 a pretty cool distro, at least as a base installation, cause over time I've upgraded and changed it so much it really has little to do with the original install.

Cheers to everyone!!!!