Ah, Best Buy, You Are My Comedy Central

[elfs]

I went to Best Buy to price some backup storage, since there are those new ~500MB USB-only drives out there. The guy who decided that a backup drive should be the exact same size and shape as a Moleskin deserves a freakin' Clio for that kind a brilliance.

As I was looking at the selection, a blue-shirted salesdude, older than the average, leaned over said, "Do you need any help?"

I picked up the model I was looking at, a Seagate, and said, "What does this work with?"

"That works with everything." He smiled as if there were a joke hidden somewhere in his reply.

"So, does it work with Ubuntu?"

He said, "Is that for Windows or Mac?"

I sighed. "It's neither. It's an operating system."

"Oh. I don't know."

At least he didn't say, "I doubt it" or something. I put the drive back.

Comments

[gromm.livejournal.com]

The trick of course, is to bring a laptop to the store so you can try out the new USB hardware. :)

Or go online and find out from the compat list.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

You went to Best Buy to get.... anything??

Shirley, you jest.

Worst customer-no-service EVAR.

Fry's, or OfficeBigBox. The former if you're not sure.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Hey, I was right next to it after taking the family to Cold Stone Ice Cream. I know what I'm getting into when I hit a Best Buy. If I really want one, I'll do Froogle.

[blaisepascal]

At least he has a choice; the nearest Fry's to me is a 10+ hour drive

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Radio Shack? I've seen those in towns too small to have McDonald's.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid those stores are all gone now. Tandy has cut its number of stores to the bone a couple of years ago. The mall stores only carry the top 100 big ticket items, and half the strip center stores are now gone.

[(Anonymous)]

I've heard a better one. Someone as part of a college presentation went into PC World (British chain) and asked why they don't sell any computers with Linux on them... the guy thought Linux was a game of all things. That said this was about five years ago, but for a shop which sells almost nothing but computer kit this is just silly.

Bet they only know that Linux exists now because so many netbooks have it as an option...

[yamazakikun.livejournal.com]

PC World can't even sell Windows properly. I bought an MSI Wind from them, but ended up returning it because a) MSI swapped out the Synaptics trackpad the computer originally shipped with for a fifth-rate knockoff; and b) not only did this new trackpad not work with Linux, it didn't even work with Windows. The default load didn't have the right driver, and the in-store drooling idiots couldn't find it online, so no problems returning the PoS. Which is too bad, because if MSI had kept the Synaptics trackpad that was one nice netbook, even if it did have the Microsoft tax.

[bbw-seska.livejournal.com]

I've had this happen to me in the big Dutch chains aswell (MediaMarkt, its just as retardulous as Best Buy).
I do my research beforehand and love to see the salesclerks get into a knot trying to pretend they know what the hell I'm talking about.
Yes I'm evil that way...

*walks over to the guy with the 'head PC dept. badge'*
Me: 'Does this tablet (Wacom bamboo) works with Ubuntu?'
Clerk: 'Euhm, it works with all the photo shop software out there miss'
Me: 'Ubuntu is a OS, I want to know if it's compatible with it, it's based on Linux...'
Clerk: 'OS? Oh you mean it's a version of Windows? Or is it Mac?'
Me: 'No, it's Linux only made easier, you should try it sometimes'
Clerk: 'Hmm, I don't think my PC is new enough to run Linux'
Me: 'I'm pretty sure it can, my ancient iMac from '99 runs smoothly on it'
Clerk: 'Yeah but I have a PC, not a Mac...'
Me: 'I'll just take this tablet here and be gone now...'

I think it especially fucks with their heads because I'm a chick. I usually start out 'could you tell me if...' and they try and explain it to me in layman's terms. Then I go technobabble and they look at me as if I'm a freak.

I love it, lol.

[yamazakikun.livejournal.com]

Same MediaMarkt as in Germany? Didn't think they were quire as bad as BB, but I'm trained to not waste my time trying to get any useful information out of salesdroids.

[bbw-seska.livejournal.com]

I checked mediamarkt.de and yup it's the same chain apparently.
It's untrained monkeys anyway in these stores.
Then again, the last time I went to a 'specialist' store I also got help from a salesdroid (like the term) that couldn't tell the difference between a normal UTP cable and a Crosscable...

[yamazakikun.livejournal.com]

Your mistake was attempting to buy a network cable at retail in the first place... €1/m (or less) on the Internet, or €10/m (or more) at retail, your choice. Not quite as obscene as HDMI prices -- even Staples is screwy there.

I keep a stockpile of HDMI, Ethernet, and power cables so that I'm never in danger of needing to buy one locally.

[bbw-seska.livejournal.com]

Well, when in a pinch I buy where I can ;)
I actually rather just have the spool and add connectors so that it's easier to customize length. Just couldn't find the spool after I moved lol.

[ewhac.livejournal.com]

I am not aware of any USB mass storage units that don't work with a recent vintage Linux. A new device node automatically appears in /dev upon insertion and, depending on who's talking to HAL (*cough*GNOME*cough*), may even be automatically mounted for you.

They all come pre-partitioned and pre-formatted with FAT32 or NTFS, of course, but that's easily fixed.

[(Anonymous)]

'eh, newer LaCie drives come with 2 small partitions, which autorun setups in Windows and OSX, to format it for you. But a simple Repart fixes that too.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Why not just leave it NTFS so it can then be used to also move stuff to friends who have Windows?

[ewhac.livejournal.com]

Because Linux support for NTFS is incomplete, and always will be, as Microsoft refuses to document the filesystem structure. Although recent Linux NTFS modules claim read/write capability, you can only write in limited fashion to existing files. In practical terms, NTFS should be considered read-only to Linux.

If you want read and write files on a mass storage device on both Linux and Windows, FAT32 is still the only real option. (There is an ext2 filesystem driver for Windows, but I don't know how reliable it is, and Windows' access controls don't really map well to anything else.)