Due to recent emails flowing through the list I finally feel I need to mention something.
I am one of the "silent" majority of users of Soekris and other style platforms. I'm a sysadmin, not an engineer, so to me, I have to buy something that works first time, not requires hacking, so I buy Soekris when I need something of this nature. We buy the platforms based on our needs, and don't try to replicate hardware that already exists elsewhere (eg. trying to stick WLAN cards in and using them as wireless routers, or something like that). I have seen some great hardware tweaks done by people in the list, I've also seen plenty of really strange things (to me) done by people who probably should just be buying something else (such as a user from a few years back who wanted to stick both WLAN and CDMA cards in a box to make it a wireless hotspot). I was buying Soekris way back when they released the net4801, so I've been using these for a while, when I buy, I try to buy in bulk (10 or so at once, for me, that's bulk *grin*), and I expect to run into a few hardware glitches in a batch, more due to the fact that Soekris is not IBM, they don't have the massive factories churning out thousands of these, they are built in small runs and so sometimes issues get through QA. _However_ I would like to mention, that when I find a REAL hardware flaw (dry solder joints for example, used to happen semi-frequently with the net4501 though I haven't seen any in years), the sales team at Soekris has been great about getting me a replacement as quickly as they have spares. Basically, I'd just like to say, there is a lot of us who read this list who just sit quietly by, lurk and read. As with all mailing lists. Finally I would like to state, if your mileage with Soekris isn't as good as those of us who have many and they work great, perhaps the Soekris is not the hardware platform for you. If you are actually nice to the sales team at Soekris, rather than starting off blaming them for something, they generally try to resolve any issues quickly. Treat them as people, not as "faceless corporate drones" and I think you'll find they treat you as a human being also. -- Cass _______________________________________________ Soekris-tech mailing list [email protected] http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
