earthlink DSL on debian

[Jack <ponpoff@yahoo.com>]

To me it took some time to straight thing out:

  *  compile kernel(mine is 2.4.17) with 
     CONFIG_PPP=m
     CONFIG_PPP_SYNC_TTY=m
     CONFIG_SERIAL_NONSTANDARD=y
     CONFIG_N_HDLC=m
  *  module aliases
      alias char-major-108    ppp_generic
      alias /dev/ppp          ppp_generic
      alias tty-ldisc-3       ppp_async
      alias tty-ldisc-14      ppp_synctty
      alias tty-ldisc-13      n_hdlc
  *  bring up eth0 without any IP settings (very important)
  *  /etc/ppp/pppoe.conf: (after adsl-setup)
     CLAMPMSS=no                 ## helps the speed if you hook your
                                 ## machine directly to your modem
     FORCEPING="."               ## the key during the initialization
     USER="user@earthlink.net"   ## your whole email address
     SYNCHRONOUS=yes             ## works for me 
  *  pppoeconf did not work for me.  dont waste your time.  
     "pppoe" package is all you need
  *  setup /etc/rc2.d/S14ppp to bring the link up when boot:
      ifconfig eth0 up 
      /usr/sbin/adsl-start

Now I'm having stable 110kB/s download speed for kernel source,  very
happy with that :)

cheers,
Jack