Re: Does anyone care about dialup?
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 <aiwanar@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.
>
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