Modem users' pain

[Peter Garrett]

On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 13:02:03 -0500
Dmitriy Kropivnitskiy <nigde at mitechki.net> wrote:

> I haven't tried this myself (don't have a modem or a dial-up account),
> but when you open System\Administration\Networking, you get a chance to
> configure "Modem connection" and it looks pretty strainght forward. It
> asks you for a phone number, username and password and gives you a few
> reasonable options. I wonder if it works as well as it looks.

No.


OK I'll be more explicit ;-)

I used this option when I installed - mainly because I wanted to see how
well it worked. My experience was as follows

1) The configuration "worked" in the sense that it allowed me to connect
successfully

2) My next task was to download / install some things. I ran apt-get
update. It took forever. I mean it was at a speed of about 4MB per hour
(not a typo or mistake) I have no idea why. I'm not a coder, but I dug
around a bit in the relevant config files - sometimes I can fix simple
problems that way.....

Unfortunately, I didn't understand them, and still
don't ;-) I'm not an "average" user, but neither am I an "advanced" user
in the terms of this list, at least!

3) The second time I used it, I was surprised to be asked for my password
(The first time presumably my sudo time limit had not expired) The
connection was still deathly slow, as above.

4) My *very next* move was to run pppconfig , then configure gkrellm to
connect/disconnect using pon/poff . Immediately, I was downloading at my
usual 15 or 16  MB per hour...

5) I haven't used the associated panel applet since, because frankly I
think it sucks, for the reasons above

Disclaimer: OK, I admit that this is a classic bit of "post hoc ergo
propter hoc" thinking, and it's possible that the method of configuration
had nothing to do with the poor performance. 

I still think dialup users need a better interface for configuring their
connections - and I personally think that a nice gtk2 wizardish front end
for pppconfig would be a good start. I had a look at zenity yesterday
thinking I might be able to cobble together a non-functional purely
cosmetic "this is what I mean" set of boxes, but apparently either zenity
lacks what I need, or I was unable to find documentation that told me
enough. 

Xdialog may be ugly, but the docs are excellent - if I have time I
will attempt to at least put some screenshots together, to show what I
think might be easier and better... 

Would this help at all ? 

Peter

-- 

Linux User #343161