*BSD News Article 19705


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From: whealton@brahms.udel.edu (Charles Ro Whealton)
Subject: Re: Unix close for 486 - commens requested
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Organization: University of Delaware
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Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 20:48:41 GMT
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In article <CByvHr.AMJ@egr.uri.edu> black@cs.uri.edu (John Black) writes:

>It's possible to have too much machine.  I'm sitting on a 
>Gateway 2000 4DX2-66V that was purchased to run LynxOS.  Its got
>a fancy VESA local bus, fast hard drive, zippy video card, and
>runs Windows 3.1 like greased lightning.  It can't even load Lynx

<rest deleted>

<EOQ>

I've (not really me but a friend) had some bad experiences with Gateway.

A couple years ago now a friend of mine bought one of their machines
and unfortunately it was at my advice because they seemed to have such
reasonable prices.  We tried to install Interactive Unix System V
release 3.2 on it and it kept bombing, saying it was "unable to read
drive geometry".  I had personally thought that it was the crappy Data
Technology RLL controller they stuck him with since when trying to
install it on one of my machines, the culprit also turned out to be a
Data Technology controller (not very scientific, just my opinion).  I
called them because I had DISTINCTLY asked them on the phone when
ordering this for him as to weather or not it would run Unix and the
woman who was the salesperson said it DEFINATELY WOULD.

Naturally, when I called back and talked to one of their support
people, they said they weren't going to do anything about it because
it "Runs DOS just fine".

Needless to say, I'll never buy another product from Gateway nor will
I ever recommend their crappy products (in my own personal opinion) to
anybody.  ISC Unix, although picky, at that point was probably one of
the most popular Unix versions out there.  If their machine wasn't
capable of supporting it as it was they should of fixed it.  As a
result, there's already several machines people have asked me to order
for them that I've gone elsewhere for.  Those machines run Unix
perfectly.  Apparently if a machine runs MS-DOS, it's an OK machine in
Gateway's opinion... Don't be fooled by their stupid ads (they used to
use Cows, I don't know what they're using in their adds now - nor do I
care.)

Good luck.

Chuck