[TriLUG] Intrex and Linux Users

[al johson]

I personally did some follow-up today at INTREX to check this claim out. It
seems that they now have a "roving Linux guru" who will work on your Linux
machine IF (and it's a big "if") he happens to be at the store you want him
at on the day you can make. Even worse, he doesn't have a schedule to keep
(say Cary on mondays, Raleigh on Tues., for example only). So while you
might get a server fixed by him, you will be lucky to figure out his
schedule!! As a side note, unfortunately when I was in the Cary store I did
not get to talk with the person I wanted to talk with there!!!
    My interest in this is that I own one of their boxes and free service
comes with every box you buy from them. I was hoping to get my modem problem
solved by them gratis. But now I have no hope, unless I can get to one of
the upcoming installfests. I saw there was one at NCSU tomorrow, but no
directions were given to get there and the message was just received by me
tonight!
     So what's next?? We really need to figure out somewhere that we can do
these installfests on a small scale--a few newbies and a few oldtimers.
Actually I have such a location in mind and yes they have a highspeed
internet connection available for use! In fact, Russ Lyday (who is another
new Tri-lug member) and myself co-chair an internet users group (I-hug--the
oldest such user group in the area) on the FIRST THURS. of every month. What
I'm suggesting is that it may be possible for us to arrange the next I-Hug
meeting as yet another (albeit SMALL) installfest to be held at our I-Hug
location which is a graphics art company named GRAPHICSINK,LTD. Their
website is www.graphicsink.com and directions are available on that site.
Russ and I can probably provide the place and probably a high-speed internet
line (which we have used in the past on PC's) and a room for about 10-15
people. The only thing we must have is some experts to teach us something
about installing Linux and fixing the problems that arise from that process.
    Interestingly enough, this company already uses a REDHAT server which is
connected to Macs and a few PC's flawlessly. The owner of the company is the
proud owner of a new OSX machine with all the bells and whistles which he is
starting to learn how to operate. He is a Mac nut so stay away if  you hate
Macs!!
In other words, this is a very anti-Microsoft environment :-)
   I just need a few expert installation volunteers to come to a location
that isn't that far from Dreyfus Auditorium on the first Thursday night next
month. I'm primarily interested in Desktops and probably most of the regular
I-hug members are as well (it is after all a group set up to share info
about interesting new things that have been found by the group members
online).
    Addtional suggestions are certainly appreciated, but volunteer now or
forever hold your peace, as they say :-)
AL Johnson.
---------------------
People bringing in their systems would definitely be welcome, but there
would have to be a limited number of systems brought in. We could accomplish
this by having a sign-up list and have it first come-first serve. Then we
could schedule some more Tri-lug members on another month. Russ and I are
always in need of great programs and I see this as definitely a great
program which I-Hug could co-sponsor with Tri-Lug.
----- Original Message -----
From: Chris Hedemark <chris at yonderway.com>
To: <trilug at trilug.org>
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 6:48 PM
Subject: Re: [TriLUG] Intrex and Linux Users


> On Fri, 2002-02-22 at 02:58, al johson wrote:
> > Recently it has come to my knowledge that Intrex Computer Company (which
we
> > have discussed before and which has stores in Raleigh and Cary) WILL
> > "ALLEGEDLY" NOW BUILD AND INSTALL LINUX BOXES FOR INDIVIDUAL USERS AND
SMALL
> > BUSINESS USERS!! In the past they have only had WINDOZE technicians but
I've
> > been told by a friend who has a company that makes purchases from them
that
> > they now have acquired Linux technicians who can now create AND service
> > individual Linux boxes. In fact when they recently encountered a problem
> > with one of their Linux boxes Intrex repaired it.
>
> I've had mixed experiences with Intrex.  When I worked at BOPS, we were
> buying systems from their Chapel Hill store.  While all of their
> components were Linux-friendly, there were some staff shortcomings as
> you might imagine.  I also had some other problems as well.
>
> When I contacted their higher management about Linux support, I got a
> very direct & promising response that 99% of the stuff they sold was
> Linux-friendly.  This was definitely something that they had in mind
> when they were deciding what hardware to keep in stock.
>
> Most of the problems that I had were with their turnaround time on
> systems, and with the lack of professional courtesy by their staff.
> Ultimately they lost out to another vendor on construction of custom
> systems because of these two problems.  Turnaround time to build a
> system was often three weeks to a month.  By the time I took delivery of
> the system the price of all of the components had gone down a lot but
> the price of the overall system didn't change.  Often I had problems
> getting them to return calls or emails, and they didn't keep very good
> records of our preferred configurations so I'd have to go and spec
> everything out all over again the next time we ordered (even big boys
> like Micron gave us the courtesy of keeping preferred configurations on
> file).
>
> The other problem that I had was with reliability. I think we had
> purchased 8 or 9 systems from them from this one configuration type, and
> like 3 or 4 of them died (hardware problems).  As best as I can figure
> they were probably using cheap power supplies which is a big no-no with
> AMD systems.
>
> I still buy individual components there from time to time but not
> complete systems.  I don't know that their techs have the expertise to
> spec out hardware that works well together.
>
> On the flip side, I've gotten some VERY custom systems from Stay
> Online.  Have you ever needed a system with 18 PCI slots?  I did.  And
> they delivered.  They were AWESOME at working with me through some tough
> hardware conflict issues and did a great job of delivering a system that
> met or exceeded our specifications (which were very tough specs mind
> you).  The price on those 18-slot systems were a lot less than I had
> anticipated, BTW.  And they worked fine with Red Hat 7.1.
>
> --
> ***********************************************************
> | Rev. Chris Hedemark, DD
> | Hillsborough, NC
> | http://yonderway.com
> | GPG Public Key - http://yonderway.com/chris/hedemark.gpg
> ***********************************************************
>
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