Trouble with PPP/pon/modem ?

["G. Olson" <golson@transport.com>]

Greetings.  I have successfully installed Linus on a 475 (full '040'),
but I have not been able to get PPP/ftp to work.  The first time I ran
pon I received an error message complaining the kernal wasn't set up or
configured for PPP.  I downloaded (via OS8.1) misc .debs, incl
PPPconfig, which I installed via dpkg.  After running PPPconfig, the
next time I ran pon, I got a blank screen which echoed keyboard input,
but which didn't respond to anything (including cntl-c.  Is it necessary
to configure the serial ports "manually".

Thanks.