HP kills Linux laptop warranty

THE MAKER OF printer ink, HP has decided that if people install Linux into its laptops, it won't be held respinsible if anything mechanical going wrong.

Enterprise.linux.com cites the case of Laura Breeden who bought a new Compaq Presario C304NR notebook from Best Buy in January.

She bought it because she wanted to use Ubuntu Edgy and was told by the people in the shop that the C304NR was "Linux ready."

However they didn't tell her that HP would void her warranty if she installed the open Source software.

Everything was working fine, until Breeden's keyboard started playing up. Keys started to stick and the space bar wouldn't always work. Not a software problem, nor one which was unlikely to be one, however HP said that it "does not honour the warranty under Linux".

They told her that she would have to remove Linux and reinstall Windows before they would think of fixing it. µ