Vwaju wrote:
>
> Here's my question: How do I initiate the dialup? Can I do this from
> within the Gnome web browser? Can I do it from the command line?
>

I seem to recall kppp was easy to set up. pppsetup works well for creating
a command line interface to pppd. I wrote a chat script a decade ago
(before things like kppp) that I use to this day that works well, but
if you want to go the command line route just use pppsetup. Make sure your
/etc/resolv.conf file gets configured. I seem to recall kppp didn't do this -
don't remember what pppsetup would do.

- Kurt

Vwaju wrote:

[snip]

> Here's my question: How do I initiate the dialup? Can I do this from
> within the Gnome web browser? Can I do it from the command line?

[snip]

Vmaju,

I'm not a Gnome user, but I used dialup for many years before I got
DSL. Run /usr/sbin/pppsetup. I think you'll need to be root to do
that. Script pppsetup will make a link called /usr/sbin/ppp-on. Use
ppp-on (as root) to dial. (Or do what I did: make a one-line script
owned by root that runs ppp-on. Invoke the script using sudo).

There is another tool already made called /usr/sbin/ppp-off that you
will use as root to disconnect. I made a script owned by root to
invoke it also--similar to what I did for ppp-on.

My scripts were called pin and poof. So to connect I did (as ordinary
user)

sudo pin

And to disconnect I did (as ordinary user)

sudo poof

I had pin and poof in a dir that was in my PATH*. You can do that or
put pin and poof in your home directory and invoke them like this:

sudo ~/pin
sudo ~/poof

or some variation on that.

If you want to do this by choosing some ready made choices in Gnome,
then good luck, I hope you find them. Or you could configure Gnome to
have buttons that run "sudo pin" and "sudo poof". Or just open up an
xterm when you want to type a command in Gnome.

I hope this helps.

-Joe

*Foot note about PATH:

Actually, pin and poof are part of SAM which you can download from
SourceForge. They are *trivial* one-line scripts, however SAM took
care of changing PATH for me so that I could invoke them like this:

sudo pin
sudo poof

without "~/" or other clarification of path.

Of course, there are lots of other ways to do this, and I don't
recommend that you get SAM for a need so simple as this. Here is a
plug, anyway:

Get SAM from

https://sourceforge.net/projects/sam-kernel

On 2008-02-13, Vwaju wrote:
> At our house in the Catskills (occasional weekend access only) I
> installed Slackware 9.1 on my old Dell Dimension L500r. I configured
> the root partition too small, and I have to reinstall (thanks to all
> of you who helped me identify this problem).
>
> The Catskill woods are very restful, but there is no DSL or
> broadband. I replaced the deprecated "Win" modem that came with the
> L500r with a modem approved for Linux. When I reinstall, I will
> configure the network for PPP.
>
> Here's my question: How do I initiate the dialup? Can I do this from
> within the Gnome web browser? Can I do it from the command line?

You would be better off getting a satellite account. Because of the
deteriorating quality of conventional phonelines, dialups are
often incredibly slow these days. Not really the ISPs' fault.

But if not, here are the basics:

Install the pppd package, which includes chat, which will
talk to your modem.

If the modem you are using is a card that includes
the serial port, I don't know about those. I seem to
remember reading someplace that the serial port on
those is already configured to ttyS0 or ttyS1.

If it's an external, hardware modem, then you'll need a serial
card and that will be configured with setserial.

Then you need to create a symlink in /dev.

It's very simple. I can give you the exact files you'll
need for pppd and chat.

Please post info about your modem and/or serial card.

lspci -v

might be useful here...

I'm assuming that you have the right kernel config/modules, which
is a reasonable guess.

Tom

--
calhobbit (at)
gmail [DOT] com

On Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:03:29 -0800 (PST), Vwaju
wrote:

>At our house in the Catskills (occasional weekend access only) I
>installed Slackware 9.1 on my old Dell Dimension L500r. I configured
>the root partition too small, and I have to reinstall (thanks to all
>of you who helped me identify this problem).
>
>The Catskill woods are very restful, but there is no DSL or
>broadband. I replaced the deprecated "Win" modem that came with the
>L500r with a modem approved for Linux. When I reinstall, I will
>configure the network for PPP.
>
>Here's my question: How do I initiate the dialup? Can I do this from
>within the Gnome web browser? Can I do it from the command line?
>
>Thanks & Best Regards,
>Vwaju
>New York City

Here is the simplest way. Run this script, and have the files setup in
/etc/ppp. The way it works, is that you execute pppd, which then calls
chat to connect, using info in the /etc/ppp files. If you connect, then
pppd takes over and you will see binary jibberish during the connection.
Control-C exits and kills the pppd.

These are set to give debug out put, so you will see an error if it
occurs, and you can fix it. Control-C kills the connection.

There may be a few gliches, like if your isp uses pap or chap for
passwords, so I included both types of files.

You may also run into glitches with file permissions and root-only
access on the modem and files, you can set it up correctly, but for
quick occaisional use , just run it as root on a console. Like
Control-Alt-F1, F2 etc. Or run su in an xterm.

If you get debug warnings about a file
can't be read, just change the perms on all files to 0755. (This is
probably not too secure, but if you are the only one on the machine,
no problem. Otherwise correct permissions involves adding users to
a Dialout group, and adjusting perms on the modem, pppd, and some other
stuff....yuck!!!

Just set up the files below, and run the connect script as root,
control-c kills the connection.


#!/bin/sh
# connect
/usr/sbin/pppd connect "/usr/sbin/chat -v -f /etc/ppp/myisp.chat" \
file /etc/ppp/myisp.options
########## end of connect ##################



#/etc/ppp/myisp.chat contains the number to dial !!!!
TIMEOUT 60
ABORT "NO CARRIER"
ABORT BUSY
ABORT "NO DIALTONE"
ABORT ERROR
"" +++\dATZ
OK ATDT1234567
CONNECT
################## end chat ####################




#/etc/ppp/myisp.options contains serial port and user name
/dev/ttyS0
115200
crtscts
lock
user me@myisp.net
noipdefault
defaultroute
debug
########## end of options #######################


#the password files below, usually an isp will take one or the other
#notice the * between user and password, and quotes are needed

# /etc/ppp/pap-secrets holds your password
# Secrets for authentication using PAP
# client server secret IP addresses

"me@myisp.net" * "my_password"
# end of pap-secrets




# /etc/ppp/chap-secrets holds your password
# Secrets for authentication using CHAP
# client server secret IP addresses
"me@myisp.net" * "my_password"
# end of chap-secrets







Goodluck, zentara


--
I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth.
http://zentara.net/japh.html