Main > Everything Else
PC Repair Business???
MonMotha:
I'm not going to go putting Linux on a customer's PC without asking them of course, and if they expect to run commercial applications, there's exactly have much of a choice. However, I would definitely consider putting it on my Grandma's computer. It's not like she knows how to use Windows, anyway, and I can very easily strip down the interface to make it basically do nothing but email, web, some cheesy games like solitaire, etc., and I pretty much don't have to worry about malware. It's actually pretty compelling in that usage scenario. Firefox + Thunderbird work quite well on Linux, as does Chrome, Opera, etc. You don't get Internet Explorer, but I consider that a positive :)
I use Linux because it's a very developer friendly environment (if you're developing anything except an application specifically targeting another OS), it's free, and it tends to work pretty well. I will say I'm quite pissed with Ubuntu at the moment, so I'll probably end up switching back to Debian. All my dev tools for my embedded stuff work great. Most are based on the GNU toolchain, anyway, so the Windows versions are actually somewhat second class citizens.
Basically, unless your goal is to run Windows applications, I'm not sure why Linux is such a laughable OS. Heck, even WINE is surprisingly good these days although still something of a pain to actually use. The MAME community has generally avoided Linux, though, so um, I guess that makes MAME a "Windows application" subject to, um, running better on Windows. Would you complain that MacOS X is so bad because it can't run all your MAME stuff like Windows does? The Linux desktop is a bit more primitive, I'll agree, but it's generally serviceable for casual use, and it makes an excellent server.
All my servers (aside from a Windows testbed) run Linux. I frequently have my uptime limited by power outages exceeding 2 hours that my UPS can't get me through. I've got Apache (HTTP server) including Phusion Passenger (Rails for Apache), postfix (SMTP server), dovecot (IMAP server), PostgreSQL (SQL database), BIND (DNS server), Samba (CIFS/Windows Networking), and some other random stuff like LLDP, DHCP, NAT routing, etc. on a little Atom box that's my "home" server. I'm using <1GB of RAM for all that, and it's surprisingly speedy for being on a lowly little Atom, and it was all free. It took a little effort to set all that up, but the OS install itself was a snap, and it just hums along requiring only occasional minor confirmation that I would indeed like to install a few security patches.
Also, saying that Android is Linux is, while technically true, a bit misleading. The kernel is indeed Linux, and that's technically all Linux is (a kernel). However, the kernel is quite modified, and the userspace is totally different from a typical UNIX-like Linux system. The GUI is also something Google came up with, rather than X11, though X11 is starting to show its age architecturally, so that was probably a decent choice on Google's part.
shmokes:
Speaking of Linux, that's something you should add to your arsenal. Howard mentioned a USB drive, but you should also have a USB flash drive with a live copy of Linux and other diagnostic utilities so you can do things like booting into a system with a corrupt OS or crippling virus.
I highly recommend this USB flash drive. It is actually a microSDHC card reader. You just put whatever size/speed microSDHC card you want in it, and it becomes a USB flash drive. I have one on my key chain with a 32 GB card in it. I use it all the time. So handy. And another great thing about it is that if I ever decide to upgrade to a 64 GB card in the future I'll be able to repurpose the current 32 GB card in a phone or camera or anything else that takes SD or microSD cards.
CCM:
I always have a copy of Hiren's Boot CD in my laptop bag. It has saved my butt on many occasions, it has tons of utilities and scanners, but the biggest thing for me is you can boot directly into Mini XP and copy everything off the hard drive of a non-bootable system.
Ed_McCarron:
--- Quote from: MonMotha on January 04, 2012, 06:15:48 am ---The "context switch" time, billing, etc. will easily add another 30-60m onto that task, so you're looking at paying $50 for about an hour and a half of work.
--- End quote ---
Yup. I charge 4 hours minimum for a truck roll. Even if it's a two hour job. For my good customers, I'll waive it. Does two things. Guarantees I don't lose money on most small jobs, and enhances my image with the good customer's bean counters.
leapinlew:
--- Quote from: MonMotha on January 05, 2012, 08:45:24 am ---I'm not going to go putting Linux on a customer's PC without asking them of course, and if they expect to run commercial applications, there's exactly have much of a choice. However, I would definitely consider putting it on my Grandma's computer. It's not like she knows how to use Windows, anyway, and I can very easily strip down the interface to make it basically do nothing but email, web, some cheesy games like solitaire, etc., and I pretty much don't have to worry about malware. It's actually pretty compelling in that usage scenario. Firefox + Thunderbird work quite well on Linux, as does Chrome, Opera, etc. You don't get Internet Explorer, but I consider that a positive :)
I use Linux because it's a very developer friendly environment (if you're developing anything except an application specifically targeting another OS), it's free, and it tends to work pretty well. I will say I'm quite pissed with Ubuntu at the moment, so I'll probably end up switching back to Debian. All my dev tools for my embedded stuff work great. Most are based on the GNU toolchain, anyway, so the Windows versions are actually somewhat second class citizens.
Basically, unless your goal is to run Windows applications, I'm not sure why Linux is such a laughable OS. Heck, even WINE is surprisingly good these days although still something of a pain to actually use. The MAME community has generally avoided Linux, though, so um, I guess that makes MAME a "Windows application" subject to, um, running better on Windows. Would you complain that MacOS X is so bad because it can't run all your MAME stuff like Windows does? The Linux desktop is a bit more primitive, I'll agree, but it's generally serviceable for casual use, and it makes an excellent server.
All my servers (aside from a Windows testbed) run Linux. I frequently have my uptime limited by power outages exceeding 2 hours that my UPS can't get me through. I've got Apache (HTTP server) including Phusion Passenger (Rails for Apache), postfix (SMTP server), dovecot (IMAP server), PostgreSQL (SQL database), BIND (DNS server), Samba (CIFS/Windows Networking), and some other random stuff like LLDP, DHCP, NAT routing, etc. on a little Atom box that's my "home" server. I'm using <1GB of RAM for all that, and it's surprisingly speedy for being on a lowly little Atom, and it was all free. It took a little effort to set all that up, but the OS install itself was a snap, and it just hums along requiring only occasional minor confirmation that I would indeed like to install a few security patches.
Also, saying that Android is Linux is, while technically true, a bit misleading. The kernel is indeed Linux, and that's technically all Linux is (a kernel). However, the kernel is quite modified, and the userspace is totally different from a typical UNIX-like Linux system. The GUI is also something Google came up with, rather than X11, though X11 is starting to show its age architecturally, so that was probably a decent choice on Google's part.
--- End quote ---
All I'm hearing is that linux sucks.
Why can't they get their act together? Even when linux looked promising, it never really took off. You can come up with a "grandma" scenario when Linux seems like it would work, but it probably wouldn't. Grandma would come home with a new camera, printer, or something and the distro of linux being used will choke on it. Linux is for the computer tweakers of the world...
All that being said, I do use linux in a few situations. I use a live disk, I dual boot into Ubuntu, and I have a few servers running some flavor of linux to provide a few services but these are being phased out. In fact, I just dumped a linux install running subversion in favor of the windows subversion which does a better job passing authentication.
As to the OP, go for it. Just don't plan on it being a huge money making venture. I would avoid going to peoples homes, and have them travel to you for issues. I don't repair computers for money anymore, but when my friends need something done on their computers, I have them bring them over. Also, look into logmein and teamviewer for remote diagnostics.
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