[conspire] linux computer repair in san francisco?

[jim]

Thanks Rick. 

    I'll call her and suggest the live CD test. 

    Generally ActNet can fix my Linux computers, 
but I know when the problem is the hardware. 
Like many, they're creatures of habit and use 
their Windows-based software diagnostic tools. 
    I worry that in the case of a Linux, not 
hardware, problem, the customer might pay for 
"handling" if the technicians can't navigate 
the linux kernel, modules, firmware, etc. 

    So if anyone knows of someplace in SF that 
can fix Linux computers, soup to nuts (hardware 
and software), I'd like to know of them. 

More thanks, 
jim 




On Tue, 2013-07-02 at 00:38 -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Jim Stockford (jim at systemateka.com):
> 
> > Someone with a "Ubuntu laptop" has asked me to 
> > point them to a shop in SF that can repair their 
> > non-working machine. 
> >     I like ActNet in SF for computer repairs, they're 
> > great for hardware, but they're a Windows shop. 
> >     But what if the problem's not with the hardware? 
> 
> Boot a live-CD distro.  If it works, then it's not the hardware.
> If it doesn't work (and you are using a reasonable, reasonably recent
> live CD), then it's the hardware. 
> 
> 
> I am sure you posted every bit of information you were given, so please
> understand that this is in no way any complaint, much less one about
> your report:  The phrase 'non-working' is pretty vague, making it a
> little difficult to help.
> 
> It would be good if the machine owner himself/herself would post to a
> Linux community mailing list (or Web forum, or whatever) about the
> problem, as communication then becomes more direct and easier.  E.g.,
> what is the actual _symptom_?  We don't know (and that almost certainly
> includes you among the 'we').
> 
> > I like ActNet in SF for computer repairs, they're great for hardware,
> > but they're a Windows shop.
> 
> That certainly doesn't preclude fixing machines running other operating
> systems.  Why would it?
> 
> You know, by the way, even most laptops, not the most modular of
> computers, typically have the hard drive in a bay and fairly easily
> removable.  If a shop hypothetically needed for some reason to have an
> MS-Windows OS load to do hardware repair -- and I cannot imagine why --
> then all the owner need do is remove the regular hard drive and say
> 'Here ya go, put whatever hard drive and OS in it you want.'
> 
> Yeah, the owner has to learn to use a screwdriver.  Horribly technical,
> I know.  (There are probably outliers, laptops that need to be partially
> dissected to change the hard drive, or require something a little odd
> like a Torx wrench.  Pity the owner didn't provide any make/model
> information.)
> 
> 
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