Emergency Linux Support

(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com, or follow me on Twitter.

Taryn East writes:

I recently had some trouble with my internet broadband connection. I changed to another provider while overseas, and when I got back, discovered that something I’d installed had broken my at-home internet setup… so I was bereft of teh intarwebs[1] for day while I figured it out.

As is usual in this kind of situation, I first tried getting it working by myself. I googled, read forums and generally faffed about installing and uninstalling various internet and USB-related packages in an effort to get things working…

but I’m not really a sysadmin, so you could probably describe my attempts as “well intentioned flailing”

I tried all the things that people said to try – but more in a voodoo/cargo-cult kinda way… because really I don’t grok these packages intuitively and don’t really want to spend the time learning. I just wanted to get it running again so I could get back to work.

So I eventually gave up, and rang tech support.

Or I should say I tried.

I googled about to find about 5 or 6 “linux tech support” companies in England. I checked out their websites and dropped a few off the list (for saying they only supported setting up LAMP stacks), and called the others. Two of these also said they only supported servers fairly quickly, and the third did so also – but only after they tried to tell me to go speak to vodafone or Mac (like either of them would support linux!).

and I was left with the strange sensation of being totally and utterly alone.

Back in Sydney I have ties with the linux community, and no doubt I could find half a dozen people willing to offer help for real cash money. I’m sure that figuring out a dodgy device-connection is not their usual bread-and-butter… but it’s still linux support.

I keep thinking Linux support would be an ideal subject for a TMA site. To do for Linux what we did for WordPress. I bet there are a lot of questions where folks would be happy to pay $10 to get some quick Linux support. If anyone wants to help me launch such a site, do please let me know.

Post external references

  1. 1
    http://rubyglasses.blogspot.com/2011/10/does-linux-tech-support-exist.html
  2. 2
    http://www.wpquestions.com/
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