Last Tuesday I bought an Acer Aspire 4320-2058 at Office Depot because I wanted to have my own Ubuntu toy computer for some time now. Esme is already running Ubuntu on her computer for some time now, but I don't want to use her computer for experimenting with the operating system and open source software. I want to be able to wipe the hard disk drive without having to worry about having to make backups of important data.
The day before I had read a discussion in the Dutch Usenet group nl.internet.www.ontwerp about the possibilities of getting a refund for a Microsoft operating system if you didn't accepted the end user license agreement (EULA). Eric B. Bednarz wrote that he recalled to have read that someone was able to get a refund of 15 euro (or 15 USD, he couldn't recall which) from Acer. Warden Dave posted a follow-up to this message with a link to an article on the BBC web site: User refund for no Windows option. Since I have plans for buying a Dell computer in the near future, I bookmarked that link, not having the slightest idea that the next day this refund issue would become more actual. Later on Warden Dave posted another useful link: Linux.com :: How to get a Windows tax refund.
So last Tuesday, when I noticed the Acer Aspire 4320-2058 notebook at the Office Depot, I had to do some quick thinking. Esme wasn't helping much because she couldn't wait for me to buy the notebook, and play with it. So I did some more thinking, and then said: I think I am going to buy it. So I asked Esme if she could try to get some discount, besides the 10% we already would get because we would pay with my bank card. I said to her that some other notebooks had a sign on them which mentioned an additional discount, and maybe we could get the additional discount on the Acer as well. But sadly that was not the case. Anyway, since by now I really wanted the notebook we asked the sales person to get one for us.
At the check out the box containing the Acer notebook was openend, and the items in the box were shown to us one by one. When the person lifted out the notebook itself, a piece of plastic fell on the floor. Oops... It was the protection for the ExpressCard/54 slot. The guy put it back in place, and repacked the notebook. At home we discovered that this piece of plastic would keep falling out of the notebook everytime we held the computer at an angle.
In the night I started the download of Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) desktop edition (i386) using µTorrent, which is still the bittorrent client I prefer on Windows XP despite the program now being in the hands of BitTorrent, Inc. I also emailed Acer and asked them which steps to take in order to get a refund. I also browsed through the Aspire User's Guide and made a mental note that pressing F2 during start up gets one into the BIOS.
Later that week I was extremely busy with a project for a customer: a message board written in Perl. And each evening I was too tired to look at the notebook, and install Ubuntu.
On Friday Esme went back to Office Depot with the ExpressCard/54 slot protector. We were hoping that the Office Depot could replace the piece of plastic with the one used by the Acer Aspire on display. But Esme was told to bring the computer back so it could be replaced.
Also on Friday I finally got a reply back from Acer. I could get a refund, somewhere between 5 and 15 USD (which is still quite some money in Mexico), but I had to bring the Aspire to Mexico City so the National Service Center could erase the hard disk drive, and remove the Windows License sticker from the bottom of the notebook. Of course this is unacceptable. If I have to travel to Mexico City it will me cost much more compared to the maximum refund. Anyway, I emailed them back asking them kindly if photos of me declining the EULA and installing Ubuntu on the hard disk drive using the entire disk would be sufficient proof that I had removed Vista Starter from the Acer Aspire 4320.
Enough talk, let's get on with downloading, verifying, and burning the Ubuntu 7.10 ISO.