Does Acer not support laptops that come with Linux?

actuday

Hey.
I purchased an Acer Aspire A515-51-517y almost a year ago. Link to product details is here - https://www.acer.com/datasheets/2017/4876/A515-51/NX.GSZSI.002.html
It has a warranty period of 1 year, during which the hard disk has already failed and replaced once ( A few days after purchase) and keyboard also replaced once. I have been very unsatisfied with the durability and customer service. Each of these repairs has cost me a week or two in productivity.
Recently, the replaced hard disk began showing a lot of bad signs. The file system continually gets corrupted and I've had to run fsck every now and then to be able to use the system. Also, the recovery menu says 'LVM Physical volume not ok(bad)'. I told the guy at the service center all this, but they want to format the hard disk, install windows and check the health of the drive like that. Apparently, I have to buy a new disk, copy the contents of the old one into it, and then hand the laptop over so they can format it. All the evidence can be got simply by running SMART on Linux. When I asked about this, he said Acer 'only supports Windows'. Why? The laptop came preloaded with Ubuntu. Why can't the company support the software that came factory loaded? 

Over all, I have been very unsatisfied with the quality of service. 

aphanic

actuday said:

You're sure they're legally supposed to support Ubuntu too?

Legally... well, I'm no laywer, but it's common sense; that's how other brands operate at least, they support machines in the way they sell them.

Hell, they even ship with customized versions of Linux (read: drivers or management utilities) for that purpose. If you were to delete it all and install say, Arch, I'd say they could tell you you'd need to be in the stock OS; but other than that, I'd expect support for Linux if it came with Linux.

actuday

I forgot to mention, the touchpad has also failed and been fixed once.

aphanic

Either you've got a unit whose reliability was sub-par or something is going on there! What an ordeal!

Since you're running Linux, you could provide them with SMART data and perform extended tests on the disk using GSmartControl (the screenshots were taken in Windows, but it's the same thing):



The Unknown model was the internal NMVe SSD.









The disk was connected to a SATA II enclosure, that's why it's running at 3 Gbps.

In any case, if the laptop was bought with Ubuntu preinstalled, that's what they have to support. But! If they give you any trouble, I could build up a Windows live environment you could put in a USB stick with some diagnostics programs for you to show screenshots to support.

actuday

You're sure they're legally supposed to support Ubuntu too? I already ran the command line SMART tools for evidence of the hard disk's failure. The service center does not accept this, saying that they only deal with Windows. I'll contact the national customer care for Acer then. Thanks for the reply.

actuday

I also forgot to mention, the laptop has also had it's display fixed after there was a vertical line across the screen. What an experience.

aphanic

actuday said:

You're sure they're legally supposed to support Ubuntu too?

Legally... well, I'm no laywer, but it's common sense; that's how other brands operate at least, they support machines in the way they sell them.

Hell, they even ship with customized versions of Linux (read: drivers or management utilities) for that purpose. If you were to delete it all and install say, Arch, I'd say they could tell you you'd need to be in the stock OS; but other than that, I'd expect support for Linux if it came with Linux.