actually, i was using dialup until 2008 i think --- both ppp and perhaps kermit (getting a little foggy there).
i certainly did not make any kernel mods to do it. but i do remember that getting it right was a bear (probably i'm foggy about it because it is a painful, repressed memory :) ). dan On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 3:16 PM, Paul Zimmerman <aiwa...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Why is it so difficult to get dialup to work in Linux? It has been this way > for many years, too. I tried a different distro in 1996 when dialup modems > were still the main means of Internet access for most home users, and it > was painfully difficult then, as well. > > Since KDE 4 is such a hog I decided to try to get Gnome-ppp working and > avoid having to load the 70+ megabytes of otherwise unneeded libraries just > for KPPP. Aside from the various files you have to track down and change > permissions for, BOTH wvdial and Gnome-ppp are ridiculously buggy. It is > necessary to disable carrier detect to prevent instant loss of a connection. > In both of them. Yes, the only way to stay online with Gnome-ppp and wvdial > is to NOT watch carrier status. So why is this function even there if it is > useless? Or why hasn't it been FIXED if it is needed? Is Gnome-ppp still > being maintained? Also, Gnome-ppp doesn't understand more than one dialer > entry in the wvdial.conf file. It uses the last one regardless of how many > there are. And it won't keep many other settings, such as dock in the > notification area. You have to remember to reset this every time you run it. > > Further, either the pppd is buggy or the kernel is. Again, you cannot stay > online with the ppd as configured. You have to disable all forms of > compression or your connection will mysteriously stop working after only a > few minutes. I remember this problem from my 1996 experiment with Linux. It > has something to do with loss of "sync" between the remote and the local > systems. As I recall, the help page I found on it said it was a KERNEL > driver problem. Sixteen years later, this problem has still not been fixed!? > And if it has been around this long, why would any distro still be shipping > its pppd configured in a way guaranteed not to work? Is it so hard to edit > some text files so the system will work as installed? > > But even being able to dial out and connect is not the end of the troubles. > Somehow the port is not released when Gnome-ppp/wvdial exits and I get > "permission denied" when I try to use the modem again after disconnecting. > It is necessary to run a script to RESTART the sl-modem-daemon to use the > modem again. This is ridiculous. It's like being sent back to the days of > MS-DOS where you have to kill and reload things to make them work. > > Does anyone working on Linux care about dialup? Some people do still have > uses for it, and some even depend on it. > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/CAOphizJ3+qCcM+2U8A-n8TB55eproLeX=YhmRM=zceozajz...@mail.gmail.com
