Quality of Help & Support

rogue-entity

What are your experiences getting help and support with Linux related problems? Good? Bad? Helpful? Unhelpful?

Recently I decided to turn my spare PC into a network gateway/firewall, I installed a second NIC and used a few tutorials on IPtables to write a script that would get the whole shebang working, and it did. I had just one problem, my uncle needs PPTP (Windows VPN) to connect to his work network, and while it worked perfectly through the old linux-based netgear router, it failed to work through my newly configured gateway.

I searched online for solutions and tried adding the appropriate lines to my iptables script, but no luck. I posted here asking for some help, I got no replys from anyone, I assumed no one had run into the problem before... but I was surprised not to get so much as a suggested solution. I tried posting on debian's forums, and mailing lists, but I got no replies, except for one telling me to enable logging and post the logs... I did that but I got no further replies. I also posted on Experts-Exchange and got no help from them either. I gave up and reverted back to my older setup.

A friend helpfully suggested I switch to Ubuntu, that their support is far better, so I did. I wiped the system clean, and installed Ubuntu server edition, and ran into the same problem. I posted on Ubuntu's forums, and also on Launchpad... and I got no replies, not even one. Not one person out there had any helpful suggestions on how to enable PPTP forwarding through an IPtables NAT/Gateway. I asked on Ubuntu's Irish channel for support and one snotty ass told me I shouldnt be using PPTP in the first place and because its insecure and I dont have the right to use an insecure system.

I couldnt help but feel like I was looking for a solution to a taboo problem.. from what I gathered, PPTP works with kernel version 2.4, using additional modules that need to be patched into the kernel source and built. Which is why my little linux-based router can do it so nicely... but something got broken in 2.6 and no one cares to talk about it, admit its a problem, or do anything to fix it. No one would helpfully tell me if it was related just to the 64bit version... No one would helpfully tell me if the problem was my IPTables script... No one offered me any useful advice or suggestions that would let me fix this problem.

I could probably patch together a workaround and use a PPTP client on the gateway itself.. but that is far more hassle for something that should "just work" when it worked fine on older systems.

Im curious as to what you all think of the level of support from the Linux and open source community. Have you ever had a problem, and felt completly snubbed when you were looking for help with an issue? Honestly I feel that if my experiences are the norm.. then I can see why people will stick with Windows.. it works for most people, and getting help is a lot easier.