Support? Customer service? What's the difference? - TUXEDO Computers

The Duden dictionary explains the term “support”, which is now also commonly used in German, with the words “help, assistance with hardware and software problems”. This formulation also fits what we at TUXEDO understand by customer service, but our support goes far beyond assistance and problem solving. In the following we would like to explain what TUXEDO’s Linux support includes.

Customer service: How we support you!

At TUXEDO we have a team of over a dozen employees in customer service who will advise you on your purchase and later support you in the operation of your TUXEDO computer. Our customer service team understands problems with the hardware and software we supply. We therefore recommend the use of TUXEDO OS or Ubuntu on TUXEDO devices. Our in-house editorial team also works on many current topics. Take a look at our News and Help & Support.

Support: How we support Linux!

With our own Linux distribution TUXEDO OS, we have created an important building block for optimally adapting Linux to our TUXEDO computers. For you as a customer, this means that TUXEDO computers are ready to go from the very first second. You don’t have to install and set up a Linux distribution on your computer first. All you have to do is unpack your TUXEDO, open it up and you’re ready to go.

Your laptop, your desktop, your choice

NEU: TUXEDO OS stands on the shoulders of giants: We use Ubuntu as a substructure, which we enrich with the current KDE Plasma desktop and our own developments. In addition to visible components such as the TUXEDO Control Center, we integrate our own kernel into the system, for example. We explain further differences between TUXEDO OS and Kubuntu in this article.

If you prefer a desktop other than KDE Plasma or prefer to use Ubuntu (or its derivatives such as Xubuntu), OpenSUSE or Manjaro directly, you are not stuck with TUXEDO OS. You can select other distributions for installation directly at the time of purchase or you can install your desired OS yourself via the WebFAI. The WebFAI installs the distributions exactly as it is done in our production: including our optimizations and tools.

Open source: give and take

Support is not a one-way street for TUXEDO. All optimizations to the Linux kernel, as well as the programs developed as part of TUXEDO OS, are open source. All source codes are openly accessible in our Github area. We always submit the patches written by the TUXEDO developers to the mainline kernelThe mainline kernel is the official Linux kernel supported and developed by the Linux community, so that every Linux distribution benefits from the work.

This allows you to install the TUXEDO Control Center and also the Tuxedo drivers under many other distributions without major problems. For Arch Linux and Manjaro we have documented the installation in our blog. However, installation is also possible under Gentoo or NixOS, for example. Many Linux distributions provide documentation on how to correctly load our tools and drivers into the system.

However, it will take some time before our innovations and adaptations are integrated into the mainline kernel. It also takes a while for the latest mainline kernel to arrive in the various distributions. However, as we always want to offer the latest and most powerful hardware and software, we recommend TUXEDO OS as the operating system for our TUXEDO computers. This way you always get the best out of your TUXEDO.