ODAY I learned something somewhat shocking. A policy which I believed was some kind of controversial fringe policy from way back in the days of Vista is still in place, and it’s in place right here in the UK. Currys/PC World is totally overzealous with its GNU/Linux-hostile policy, which is almost definitely dictated by non-technical management, maybe in collusion with Microsoft.

To start this story from the very beginning, an old desktop of mine died on me and I sought a replacement immediately (within the hour). My wife and I quickly grabbed our stuff and rushed to a nearby computer store. There are not many such stores anymore because Currys pretty much devoured the competition, including Dixons.

So over 3 hours later we are back home and there is still no replacement. We were eager to pay as much as it takes for what we needed, but Currys has an unacceptable policy. Not only does it put Windows (Vista 8) on virtually every machine that’s not “Apple”-branded (there are barebone boxes only for desktop and they’re available online only) but it has an outrageous policy regarding warranty.

As it turns out — and this was confirmed to us by multiple people (in multiple PC World stores) after arguing for more than half an hour — once you install GNU/Linux (even if it’s dual boot with Windows) no damage to hardware would be covered by the warranty (keyboard, screen, and so on). One of the sellers, who follows the Linux Action Show, regretted this but also defended this policy because it’s imposed from above. No matter how ridiculous a policy it is, changes to zeroes and ones on the hard-drive (to remove spyware), according to Currys, would void the warranty on what clearly is not connected to software.

After many chats with colourful language and even car analogies or other such arguments about the separability of hardware and software we decided we just couldn’t do business at PC World. The company is inherently GNU/Linux-hostile. Avoid Currys.