Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen
From: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: Re: Dell "Support" for Dell machines
Message-ID: <3407@sixhub.UUCP>
Date: 8 Mar 91 04:58:12 GMT
References: <534@psitech.com>
Reply-To: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: *IX Public Access UNIX, Schenectady NY
Lines: 61

In article <534@psitech.com> bob@psitech.com (Bob Posert) writes:

| It looks to me like Dell is a DOS company that sells UNIX.  I'd prefer
| to buy from a company that sells mated software and hardware, and will
| recommend purchases of real workstations in the future.  Suns are
| looking better all the time.

  I can't defend the support group because I'm not impressed yet,
either. But I do disgree about the company. They have a very fine and
competent UNIX development staff, and a support staff which isn't up to
speed, seems confused and disorganized. They are not OEMing UNIX from
someone else, they have in-house expertise, although it may not be
getting the horsepower to the ground from the customer standpoint.

  I have tried to offer suggestions on how they could do it better,
since I have been on both sides of support for some decades now, but I
either haven't gotten to the right person or haven't convinced him/her
that I have dealt with companies which do better and I can tell them
how to do better, too. I believe that sales is looking for more
features, while the customers are looking for the current features to be
working better.

  However, I do have faith that the product will get the bugs worked
out, and that I will get the bug fixed versions of the parts which are
not correct. In the meantime I still find it worth keeping a personal
machine to run their software. I had beta versions from three vendors,
and the Dell is at least usefully stable. I really like having all the
window managers and libraries, so I can run most of my X tools.

For the record I am looking for:

+  a better X server
	I want 1024x768 and 1152x900. I don't want to compile the server
	myself, there aren't enough hours in a day to fix every utiltiy
	in UNIX over again.

+   gcc ready to run
	same story, yes I can (have) port it, but there's no time. I
	want to plug and play. The native compiler generates slow code
	beyond belief. The whole X library should be redone with gcc.

+   bus mouse support
	this has been dragging since November. It has cost them the
	chance to even be considered for a contract. I want my trackball
	back!

Three things out of all of V.4 aren't too bad, and at least what's there
doesn't crash all the time. I could say some bad things about the speed
of the tape driver, but I made it faster by putting in 12MB of memory
and using 3MB double buffering. Not subtle or cheap, but effective.

Overall I would give Dell the benefit of the doubt on support for now. I
believe they're putting resources into the problem, but not using them
effectively as yet. I could be wrong, in which case I will have a huge
SX systems and nothing to run on it, but for the moment I'm hopeful they
will get their support act up to the speed of the technical staff.
-- 
bill davidsen - davidsen@sixhub.uucp (uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen)
    sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX
    moderator of comp.binaries.ibm.pc and 80386 mailing list
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me