A Tale of Two CTs (Computer Terminals)

Whereas I usually only buy one computer every so many years, this year I bought myself not one but two laptops. When you hear about the first, you'll understand why I got the second.

My first laptop was love at first sight. Tiny and extra-light, comes with Linux built-in, will let me video-Skype my parents. It looked like just what the doctor ordered. Sure, it's only 32-bit, its tiny screen has low resolution and its keyboard is too small to be comfortable; but the ASUS Eee PC 701 4G with webcam was so cheap, I couldn't resist.

Now lo and behold, first mistake: it doesn't run out of the box an unadulterated version of Linux. You actually need special kernel modules and patches to various system utilities to get it to run. As I install my favorite Linux distribution, Debian, I find that it won't suspending and resume properly; not only that, I find it by opening the machine to a screen with an unremovable burn stain after I transported it closed in my bag, confident that the CPU would somehow turn off. Worst, despite all my efforts, recompiling many a custom kernel, installing many a version of support packages, I can't make the machine to reliably suspend and resume with that extra SD card I need to store the data that can't fit the builtin 4G SSD. Not only will the kernel resume to an unusable state with a filesystem removed from under its feet, but the bad timing of the SD card shutdown causes actual data corruption. In the end, it's the power adapter that dies. As I bring it back to the dealer's customer service, it suddenly resurrects - for a week or two.

That's when I call ASUS. With over 6 minutes of wait on the phone each time. They agree to change the power adapter, and do something about the screen. They have me FedEx the machine back to them. Insert a few weeks of anxious waiting. Insert one week of FedEx playing cat and mouse with me at my work and them not coming to my house at any identifiable hour, not phoning me, only giving me a last notice of their coming, too late. I have to go to the FedEx place away from town, only to find that ASUS shipped back the computer as I shipped it: no change in power adapter, no screen repair. Indeed, the power adapter had decided to work again. For a month. Some plastic bit sounds inside when you shake, but you'd need a small non-standard hex screwdriver head to open it without it breaking more.

I call ASUS again. Same long wait on the phone, plus the number has changed. This time, I make it painstakingly clear that I need a new power adapter, and that the screen failure is not any single pixel not showing, but rather a thumb-print-sized dim spot, next to which I stick a post-it. The customer service agent is very nice, and this time they prepay my shipping the unit back to them for the second time. After two weeks, I have a brand new unit with a brand new power adapter and a perfectly working screen. Except that the Backspace and = keys don't work properly! I contact my previous contact by email, and she tells me I need to call to have a new RMA number, and I can either ship the unit for repair or (since I'm savvy) just be shipped a keyboard directly that I'd install myself. Yet another long phone wait afterwards, I have to give my phone number with the empty promise that I'll be called back. And when I call during the weekend, it's to be told after the same wait that the RMA department is only open during weekdays 9am-6pm PST. I guess it would have been way too hard for the automated voice to tell me about those opening hours instead of repeating the commitment of ASUS to be green. The story isn't over yet, but don't hold your breath for a happy ending.

In the meantime, I got myself a clue and a new laptop. This time, I identified a quality machine. Proven to work for real on actual free software Linux distributions. Small and light, yet with full-sized (lightable) keyboard and a nice big bright 1440x900 LCD. Fast 64GB SSD. 64-bit CPU, dual-core and virtualizing. Unlike the MacBook Air, it does fit in a business mail envelope with all the ethernet, USB, VGA and audio connectors I need built in, not counting wifi and bluetooth. I get it at half the introductory price yet extended warranty at eBuySuperStore.com, where I opted for a second set of batteries instead of an optical drive in the side bay. Sure it doesn't look as fancy as a MacBook Air, a Sony or an ASUS U5E. But better than any of them, the Lenovo ThinkPad X300 is a joy to use. The real quality in a computer is not to make the bystanders jealous, but to actually make you productive.

And now let's speak of customer service. When I receive the machine, two nights after I ordered it, it isn't working, and beeps when I turn it on. The well-designed customer manual quickly identifies a RAM problem. Indeed, the second memory slot, in which the seller offered an extra 2GB of RAM in addition to the 2GB shipped by Lenovo, doesn't seem to work; it refuses any of the modules I put in it, that are all accepted in the first slot. After filling in a ticket on the Lenovo/IBM website, I get a promise of a phone call within 10 minutes. Indeed, after about 10 minutes, someone calls and confirms the ticket. On the next business day, UPS delivers at 10am a box in which to ship the machine, prepaid. The next day, the machine arrives at IBM and is shipped back to me. And I could follow this amazing progress online. When the machine comes back to me the day after at 10am, fully repaired, it turns out that Lenovo wasn't to blame: there had been a bit of clear tape stuck in the memory slot, probably left by the seller when he added his memory module. Now, that is an effective customer service! Competitors, take notice.

Of course, life is not perfect with the X300. Lenovo didn't promise Linux support; it just let me choose Windows XP rather than Vista as a better working supported OS. Still I had a great time installing Linux thanks to my now new favorite piece of penguin meat on a stick, GRML64. With it I partitioned and encrypted the disk, then copied over an existing Debian installation. I had problems with mplayer, but they could be traced to bad packaging and black magic caused by the installation of proprietary nVidia drivers on the machine I had copied Debian from. I couldn't get Linux's xrandr to display on the external VGA, unlike other people did; and I did experience a few cases of lost interrupt and keyboard lockup. I also figured I had to replace the unreliable NetworkManager by WICD. But no disk corruption, no need for custom kernel compilation with unsupported patches. It mostly just worked, out of the box.

In the end, with relatively little trouble as compared to any laptop installation I had in the past (Linux, M$ or Mac), the machine, christened B612, is a complete mobile Linux PC on which I can actually run the programs I am developing. It will run 40-bit OpenGenera as well as 64-bit SBCL, Skype as well as Pidgin, and of course Iceweasel (with flashplayer) and mplayer. All that with over 4 hours of actual autonomy without sacrificing screen brightness or wireless connectivity.

And this computing comfort brought to my life by the Lenovo ThinkPad X300 is what allows me to wait serenely as ASUS fumbles its way towards perhaps delivering me a semi-working Eee PC. Long live capitalist China!