Kent West has suggested as a help to my would be helpers, I summarize where
I stand now.
The printer problem in Debian has been solved, with the explanation that I
gave in an earlier posting. Briefly what happened was that lilo put the
Redhat kernel into the Debian startup.
My internet problem is that I cannot get on to the internet with any
version of linux, but I can with Windows98 and Beos. This a problem that
developed last summer. Until then, any version of linux that I tried
worked. We have established the fact that the problem is not with my line,
since my ISP administrator brought his own computer on which he had
installed Redhat, plugged it into my line and got onto the internet.
Using wvdial and minicom, I get connected, but then something happens and I
do not get on the internet. wvdial keeps redialing, minicom stays where it
is. ppp is apparently properly installed, judging by the relative logs, but
pon does not work.
When I type pon, I get the response "proxyarp option is disabled".
Given that this is a problem common to all versions of linux, it does not
seem that the solution is in editing any ppp file. It almost seems that
there is a failure in some part of the hardware whose only effect is to
prevent linux from going online. My facititious suggestion that a gremlin
who does not like linux dwells in my computer is only a bit more implausible.
