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On Friday 11 March 2005 00:53, Julian Hall wrote:
Jon Lawrence wrote:I'll give another vote for Eclipse. Others to consider are Griffin or star. human being on the end of the phone: that depends on your definition of human - mine is that they are capable of a reasoned thought process, with some ISPs that definition doesn't apply to first level support.In defence of support staff (God alone knows why!) when I worked in Tech Support as a Senior (oh yeah that's why ;)) we had strict targets set by Management about how many calls the techs had to take, how long each call must last on average (yes I know.. stupid to those of a technical mind who know you CANNOT pigeonhole technical issues like that - but they did anyway). So as a rule the front line staff *have* to stick rigidly to what is supported because otherwise they'll get the toe of someone's boot in their bums and to be honest the poor sods were under enough pressure as it was. Also may be a possibility they could actually lose out on a bonus if they don't hit their targets, so they have a financial incentive *not* to deviate from what is supported. Secondly, there is the matter of training. Zero training was given on Linux. Hell after I left I heard the question was asked "Do we really need Mac training?" by some numbskull manager. The response was "HELL YES!" of course. Anyway, enough of me :) In short, do please try not to blame the poor sod at the end of the phone who may be able to recognise a keyboard twice after two weeks training, but even if they can help with Linux may have someone breathing down their neck to ensure they stick to official support. Basically I would say go for the ISPs who actually say they support Linux, or better yet one of the recommendations given by the LUG :)
Yes, it was a rant - BUT it was a valid rant :) Front line support is there to stop the chaff from reaching the Techs that often cost the ISP a lot more to employ. If you're trying to get support on something that the company doesn't officially support then you have got to find a way passed that front line :) This applies to most companies - not just ISPs. Us geeky people often put products to work in scenarios they're not specifically designed for, and thus cannot/should not expect direct support from the company in question. If you've got a question that perhaps only the company can actually answer, then you've absolutely got to get passed that front line support to find your answer. It's not the front line guys fault that they don't know the answer :) and getting annoyed with them serves no purpose. If you're trying to get questions answered to help you do something slightly unusual (and yes Linux is can still be classed as unusual) then you've got to learn to play the game. The game being either to word your problem in such a way that the frontline staff will either a) understand what you're asking or b) bump the call up to the next level. If you can't do that then you've got to go through the rigmarole of pretending that your doing this and that on a certain OS and unless you're good you'll get caught out doing this at somepoint. Many of the technical people in ISPs know each other to some degree or another and often hang around on the same mailing lists/irc channels - the higher the level they're at, the more they know the people in other ISPs. The challenge now is that a lot of newbies (by that I mean non techies) are starting to use Linux. These are the guys that need support, and they've got no chance of playing the 'support game' so they have to use Linux friendly ISPs. Jon -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe. FAQ: www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html