[H-GEN] Telstra and Linux

[Tony Nugent]

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On Tue Feb 18 2003 at 16:20, "3 Blokes" wrote:

Hey 3blokes, you aren't alone here...

> Sorry for all the posts, but this has really got my goat(I think thats the
> phrase) Telstra Bigpond customers will now notice that Gamearena has Removed
> ALL of their linux distributions from their website, no longer offering them
> as free downloads,

Really?  Is that so?  oh crikey, it's just going from bad to worse.
(<me> goes and looks...)  Heck, you're right - even openBSD has
disappeared.

  Apart from the iso images of recent-release distros and very few
  various odd things, there hasn't been all that much there that has
  been worth downloading.  And even the iso images have only ever
  stayed available for a relatively short time.

I'm a (very) disgrunted telsta adsl customer.  The fact that I
refuse to put a windoze box on my internet connection has got me so
much crap from them...

  "you say that there is an authentication problem?" "yes"
  "how do you know that" "because that's what the log messages say"
  "can you give me the number on windows error message?"
  "no, I'm using linux so I can tell you exactly what the problem is"
  "oh, linux? we don't support that. can you put a computer running
  windows onto your adsl connection so that you can tell us what the
  error message is?"
  "you're kidding? forget it"
  click

Fair dinkum, it's really that bad.  Or worse.  The only reason I do
ring their tech support people nowdays is mearly to confirm that
there is a problem, that it's in their network, and not with me.
In the two years that I've been using their "service", the problem
has _never_ been at my end, ever.

> please anyone who has telstra bigpond I urge you to send
> them an E-mail and express your dissatisfaction at their decision(Their

Been there, done that.  I have *never* had a response from them (not
even an acknowlegement), ever.  I would think that you are p*ssing
in the wind.

> excuse for removing them?, they say they want Gamearena to be for "gamers"
> only, and yet they offer linux dedicated servers for download, but offer
> nothing to run these servers on.)

I'm just about fed up with telstra.  I can't be bothered any more
with their single-minded attitude about what they consider worthy of
running on computers.

I'm talking with my feet -- I'm about to switch to a new broadband
provider.  Telstra can just stick it where the sun don't shine.  As
it turns out, it appears that I can get a plan (with a permanent IP)
from a linux-friendly ISP at around the same cost as what I'm paying
now, and with no effective data cap (well, at least none that would
affect my usual usage costs).

And 3blokes, I would urge you to do the same.

(btw, why the pseudonym?)

> Their real excuse?, money, of course, they want all of us to pay extra per
> month for unmetered downloads from the planetmirror website, just so we can
> get our linux distributions that in the past we got for free.

Yep, that's very likely the story.

> Telstra's value for money just got worse(if it could?)

ahh, the first oxymoron is the subject line.  mentioning "telstra"
and "value for money" in the same sentence is the second one :-)

So hey people... give telstra a wide berth when it comes to
broadband, they are bad news.

Cheers
Tony

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