-----Original Message----- From: Sebastian Wolff [mailto:sebastian.wolff@bauing.uni-weimar.de]

This is a call for help and a troll against linux.

Wow, what a concept, cry for help and rag at the same time. Kinda like let's bite the hand that fed ya, huh?

Is it possible that in particular situations Linux may kill the main board of any laptop?

By now I destroyed with the help of SuSE Linux 8.2 and 9.0 2 (!) laptops in

Quite doubtful in the current space time continuum the

last 2 month: An older Maxdata and a brand new Dell Inspiron 5100. Both show the same symptoms:

One wasn't enough, eh? You had to go for two!

They simply don't react after turning the power on (except turning on the fan and the CD drive). The repair service believes it is the main board which must be replaced.

Try plugging it in. The battery only lasts for so long!

And each time the 'damage' resulted from similar situations (the first time I believed it was the age of my laptop):

I wanted to change the BIOS configuration. To enter the setup you have to

If the damage to the first resulted from the age of the laptop, how are you figuring that the installion of SuSE was at fault. press

F2 in the very beginning. Usually I miss this time. Hence, I resetted the computer after missing it. However, I am used to damages to the file system in the worst case - therefore, to press reset is a very common and intuitive way.

So, YOU fiddled with the BIOS settings on not just one, but two laptops, screwed them both up, and now you want to blame SuSE/Linux? That's a stretch!

Well. Sometimes it can also kill your whole hardware.

So can the nut between the chair and the keyboard. They call it operator error! ;-)

Now I have 2 questions:

(1) What happened ???!

Sounds to me like you screwed up two perfectly good laptops! Don't fiddle with the BIOS until you learn what you're doing.

(2) Who can I sue for it?

Try Bill Gates. If his Micro$oft software wasn't sooo expensive and limiting, you probably would have installed Windows, and you'd now be whining in a Micr$oft forum instead of here!

After all this operating system (really, I liked it till now) destroyed a value of 2500 Euro (2700 $) within only 2 month!

Let me get this straight. You messed with the BIOS, code that is located on the machine's mainboard, and you are now blaming this on the operating system lcated on the hard drive. Sweet!!! Back to CIS101 for you!

As a student I can live with that money for a whole year - and then I wanted to finish a research project next week - 3 complete month of work are gone now.

I guess then it's time to fix one of your laptops, and this time, don't fiddle with the BIOS!

Now, this is a 'free' operating system. Who is responsible? Linus Torvalds?

SuSE? The developer who produced this bug?

Or, as I mentioned above, the nut between the chair and the keyboard? ;-)

Rather nobody. After this incident I have to define 'reliability' in a new sense. This warranty problem might be a reason to encourage companies to stay at Windows, HP-UX or MacOS.

Do you live in Redmond?

Regards Sebastian

Back atcha, Rob Smith sucessfully running SuSE 9.0 on an IBM ThinkPad 600E --