[OT] Computer dealers, possibly Linux-friendly?

[Devin Carraway]

On Mon, Apr 24, 2000 at 12:29:30PM -0700, Colin Marquardt wrote:
> I will soon need to buy a PC, and I'd like to hear your opinions
> about good stores in Sonoma/Marin County. 

	Most places around here have some sort of baseline Linux awareness
going, but relatively few go so far as to provide any measure of support for
it (e.g. having a copy of the hardware compatibility lists on hand; note to
board for project: free subscription service where we post them a hardcopy of
the compatibility lists every so often).  Happily, most of the computer shops
aren't big enough to have been forced into exclusionary deals with MSFT
preventing them from sale of blank machines, through relatively few will
preinstall.  It's getting easier to pick your choice of distro off the shelf
of a shop, and you may get to trade a few comradely remarks with the
counterperson about it.

	Anyway: around Sonoma the most Linux-friendly places I've found are
Bits & PCs (full disclosure: B&PCs supports NBLUG), who can sell blank
machines, components to assemble same, distros if you need them and are aware
that Linux isn't a tropical disease; also HSC Electronics in Rohnert Park; not
a good place to buy anything modern, but a good place for cables, scrounged
parts and (taking up most of the place) electronics.  If you just want the
parts to build a blank machine, and are up to a bit of work on your own part,
marketpro hosts a computer show every month at the SoCo fairgrounds; you won't
find much Linux friendliness there, but you won't find much friendliness
towards anything else either (stop and shake hands with the printer catridge
vendor, though).

	Places to avoid: mostly the chain shops, e.g. the stuff in malls.
Few of them know what Linux is (come to that, few of them sell hardware
generally, presumably due to thinner margins and elevated training costs).
The consumer-market shops mostly have exclusionary deals with MS or else have
de facto policies against selling blank machines, and the hardware is usually
poor quality anyway.  HP -- the "around here" is thin, but HP's consumer-level
PCs suck beyond my immediate ability to describe.  Just on general principles,
you might start out at any given shop asking how they feel about Linux; if you
get smiles and recognition, rank that higher than if you get blinking
incomprehension and the immediate fetching of a manager who will gruffly
announce that they don't support "hippie software" (don't ask me where that
quote comes from).


> PS: AMD/Athlon much preferred.


	The Athlon is quite hoopy with Linux.


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