I've found novatech in portsmouth that a few of their floor staff are versed on Linux. Two years ago when I bought one their branded no-name laptops they had fedora, mandriva and Ubuntu live CDs for those few of us that wanted to poke. They won't let you use your own "firestick" etc. In case it buggers something up.
the laptop I bought was a floor model so I was able to test my 3g dongle and other gizmos in both fedora and Ubuntu. Probably wouldn't have bought it w/o being able to see it working beforehand.
I might be mistaken, but didn't novatech at one point ship some of their systems with a Linux preinstalled? Think this was with net tops.
Ian
alan c <aeclist@???> wrote:
>On 13/01/12 21:32, Samuel Penn wrote:
>> On Friday 13 January 2012 12:50:12 alan c wrote:
>>> With a current thread I have seen about laptop buying in mind, I
>>> called in to Novatech Reading on my travels. I spoke to the Manager
>>> Alex Burrows. I had discussed Ubuntu etc with him on a previous
>>> occasion or two over the years and received agreement in principle to
>>> try out Ubuntu on specific kit by arrangement (at non busy times).
>>>
>>> This time I was happily surprised to find that if I (or anyone else)
>>> wanted to try Ubuntu on any particular product then he had it already
>>> on a USB stick ('firestick' was the term he used). I mentioned the
>>> larger range of laptops available at the Portsmouth store - there were
>>> 6 laptops on display at Reading but a lot more on the web site
>>> (Portsmouth, I guess). Alex then added that the (Area/store) Manager
>>> at the Portsmouth store (John Leslie) would be also happy to fire up
>>> Ubuntu, again, preferably by pre arrangement for non busy times.
>>
>> Okay, many thanks Alan. This is good news, though suffers from the
>> problem that non-busy times are likely to be whenever I'm at work.
>>
>> It does sound like it's worth my time checking out which of their
>> laptops I'm most interested in, and contacting them.
>>
>
>The need for pre arrangement and non busy times is a reflection of the
>rather special (in this case) type of attention they want to have
>available for the customer here. In principle they will be cautious
>about possible damage to the product, and if they have a rep present
>who understands what is going on, then if something goes wrong they
>know it was not the customer's fault(!) So their preferred rep will
>likely be a rare one who can handle the 'unusual' situation, probably
>a senior person. As time goes on, I would guess that this would all
>get more relaxed, but it might take some time. (The manager named for
> the Portsmouth store is said to know about various drivers too).
>
>As an aside comment, when I have previously asked a random rep in the
>Reading store how many of his colleagues used Ubuntu he answered that
>'they all use Windows'. It would be a step forward if an increasing
>contact with Ubuntu or whatever began to motivate a few of them to
>use something other than just Windows....
>--
>alan cocks
>Ubuntu user
>
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