I have had spectacularly good results the 4 or 5 times I have called on support. Once was for a vexing disk subsystem problem they helped me to identify. Another time they helped save me from an LVM blunder, and in a shocking display of customer service they even helped me figure out an LVS problem even though I wasn't using Red Hat's own Piranha front end.
That said, there are a number of TriLUG list regulars who have given me assistance at least on par with what I have paid Red Hat to provide. I guess the difference is, if Jon or Jason or Tanner, Jeremy, Mark, Aaron, Mike, Lee, Chris, or the several others whose names I just got tired of writing, all perish in a horrible painful Crazy-Fire demise, requiring closed casket services due to the gruesome disfiguring inferno, I will still be able to call on Red Hat for some help when I need it. Ryan -----Original Message----- From: Jason [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 5:11 PM To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list Subject: Re: [TriLUG] RHES * [EMAIL PROTECTED] ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [050221 10:56]: [snip] > * How often have you folks had to rely on Red Hat's technical > support, and how would you rate it? > * Have you experienced any trouble with RHEL "officially" supporting > various hardware, or run into other distro-specific restrictions? > * Allowing that we do have Linux expertise, would you choose RHES > over OSX? RedHat is like just about every other vendor who provides technial support. It's a real pain to get them to understand that you're not an id10t, and you *did* read the manual, and yes, you *already* sent them all the information they need to diagnose the problem, so please just fix it! I've been a RHES customer for over a year now, with several x86 and zSeries licenses. Their zSeries (mainframe) support is pretty weak, at least at Level 0, 1 and 2 support. (Yes, you usually start a conversation with Level 0 support, but at least it's always an English-speaking individual). The last time we called in for a zSeries problem, they wanted to know what kind of motherboard and CPU we had on the box. <sigh> They have good people behind the scenes, it's just hard to actually get in touch with them sometimes. Like I said, they're just as good (or bad) as everyone else for support, but sometimes I wonder why we pay all this money. Where I work, we also have AIX contracts, and if we bought everything that Redhat is trying to sell us, it would almost cost as much as AIX -- makes it hard to sell to maanagement. Redhat certainly wouldn't be my first choice, but my management wants someone to throw money at and sue if there are any problems, I guess. I only rely on Redhat support if I can figure the problem out myself, or if mailling lists and other open-source venues don't have the answer. My boss wants me to open a ticket with RedHat for everything, but it takes too long, and I know I'll have better luck out in the community. Hope that helps, Jason -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc
