Debian
This are more philosophical questions, to go more lowlevel: it's 3 days that I'm struggling with the upgrade of a Debian 3.1 Sarge server from kernel-image-2.4.27-1-386 to anything else... I installed the new packages [kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686|kernel-image-2.4.27-2-686] and after the reboot it doesn't go anything... kernel panic with an error 432 in init which can't find the /dev/console. I installed udev etc. No way! I found out that the problem is the change from devfs to udev, but finding a solution is still far away. And yes, I searched for a solution everywhere and also asked about that twice on #debian, but nobody answered me - in fact it seemed that nobody even noticed my cry for help... So far the kindness... Ok, really no problem I'll find a solution alone, I'm used to it
Benq is officially on my no-buy list. I was fooled by the name of the Benq-Siemens S88 GSM phone into thinking that it was a successor of the glorious Siemens S business line. Wrong! I bought it in July and it immediately presented itself as "somehow" different... Here is an excerpt from the mail I wrote to the Benq support:
On the paper the phone is amazing, the design is great and the functions it offers, despite the lack of UMTS connectivity are gorgeous. So the first impression was great, until I tried to send my address book from the phone to another device. My previous phone being an Siemens S55 I was expecting to have the same level of ease of use. Not in that case. I couldn't find a way to send my entire phone book via Bluetooth, just one address a time. Ok, I somehow managed to get through it. Then I installed the PC software. Nice design etc., but it's not compatible with the previous Siemens software, or at least I couldn't find an easy way furthermore it's Windows only. Another annoying thing regarding the address book management is the fact, that if you have the same number on the SIM and in the phone it appears twice. Back to the phone itself. I write SMS messages mainly in Slovene, so I decided to turn of the T9 writing aid for the languages I don't use. No way! After I turn off the phone, the settings returns back to everything enabled. Quite frustrating, especially when I discovered, that even if I didn't turn the phone off the settings will mysteriously return to the default value after a while. When I tried the Bluetooth stack there were some other problems. I have a handsfree device - an SBS V600. It basically works... I have to connect almost every time to it using the phone menu and not with the button on the V600. The turning on and off of the Bluetoothh is awfully slow. Another thing that annoys me is that there is no way to set the locale settings. I live in Europe, our week starts on Monday, but there is no way to set this on the phone.
I furthermore couldn't find the setting to let the phone vibrate, when a SMS arrives.
I tried to connect the phone to my Linux box (OpenSuSE 10.0 x86_64) and set it to mass storage and the result was that the phone memory was not visible, just the MicroSD card.
Sadly, those are all features, that an Siemens customer expect to have on a phone. I'm sorry, but my first experience with a Benq-Siemens phone is not very satisfactory.
At the beginning the Italian support answered me that because the S88 is not sold in Italy they can't help me and I have to ask the German support wasn't there supposed to be something about an EU warranty somewhere?). So,the German support answered me that probably some of the problems could be solved with a firmware upgrade, but unfortunately it has to be done by a Benq Service partner of course in Germany and they gave me a few addresses. In the beginning of September my father went for a business trip to Germany and took the phone with him, there began the real adventure. On both the addresses Benq gave me for Munich they couldn't help him, they didn't have the correct cable or they will have done it, but in 2 weeks, which was absolutely to much. One of the employees finally gave my father a hint, somewhere in the near there was a Siemens service partner (of whom Benq hadn't the address) and that he could try there. The Siemens service partner was worth it's name they did it in 1 hour there was no problem at all it was all done under warranty.
This is the difference between Siemens and Benq, they fire the people working in Germany, the situation can't get any worse all they wanted was the Siemens brand and now, after a year their strategy is clear. Shame on you Benq!
When the phone (and my father) returned from Germany I immediately tried it; it's better, the Bluetooth stack works as it's supposed to work and the T9 doesn't kick in anymore, but it still isn't a Siemens :-/
