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.