Why my network manager is dead

[Rowan <rowan berkeley googlemail com>]

You will recall my messages about a machine with a dead interface, two 
days ago. The engineer at LinuxCertified has incautiously said this:

"If you performed updates esp a kernel update, you will need to 
recompile the r8168 driver module"

Now that I have grasped and faced up to what really happened (and it has 
taken a few days to put it together), I have sent them the following email:

"I have received the LC2430S which I ordered. Unfortunately, it has 
become clear that the machine was sent out with its automatic online 
updater switched on, so that as soon as I connected it via Ethernet to 
the web, it downloaded a number of updates, and attempted to install 
them, thereby disabling the interface, which has been dead since. I 
consider this to be a faulty condition in the goods supplied, and I am 
completely dissatisfied with the response of your engineers. Unless you 
are prepared to arrange, at the expense of LinuxCertified, for a 
qualified professional here in London to promptly restore the machine to 
working order, I shall have to ask you to collect the machine at your 
own expense and provide me with a full refund, including the cost of 
carriage and import tax. If you are not willing to do this, I shall 
begin Consumer Complaint procedures against your company."

I think that at the same time I myself can afford to hire the services 
of anyone here in London who is qualified to do it, to restore this 
machine to its previous working order (if necessary by using the system 
recovery disks, which I have). This would be assuming my request for a 
refund or replacement is refused, as I assume it will be. I shall then 
change the angle of my complaint so as to try to force them to 
re-imburse me for the cost of repairs. If any readers of this are in 
London and know of such a person, please post here.