avoid syncronising clock and how to dial-up

[Neil Woolford]

At 11:44 04/12/04, altern wrote:

>couple of stupid questions I guess.

Not in the least!

>I just setup my network connection yesterday and my problem now is that 
>every time Ubuntu loads up it tries to syncronise the computer clock to 
>the one on ubuntu server. Because i have dialup connectionn at home its 
>cannot syncronise at all as its not connected by default. So it takes 
>several seconds until this is timed out. How could i disable this?

I've been meaning to do this for a while myself, so you've nudged me into it :)


The script that calls for the update is /etc/init.d/ntpdate.  This is 
called as part of the later stages of the general boot process by a link 
from /etc/rcS.d/S51ntpdate.

The are differing views about how to disable such a process...

My opinion on it is to rename the link from /etc/rcS.d/S51ntpdate to 
/etc/rcS.d/_S51ntpdate.  This simple renaming stops the script running 
automatically, as the system is looking for names that begin with S (for 
start) or K (for kill).  The link is easy to rename back if you want to 
start the service again.

(I don't know your level of experience of Linux, so I'll just point out 
you'll need to be in a root terminal to do this renaming;  it is not 
allowed as a normal user.  Email me for more info if this is problematic.)


>And this is the stupid question: how do i dial up? I was using SuSE before 
>and there was some small application to do this but i cannot find anything 
>like this in ubuntu.

Not at all stupid.  The key here is to add the Gnome 'Modem Lights' applet 
to your top panel on the screen.  You'll also need to set up your 
connection.  I'd suggest ignoring the ppp connection setup under the 
Networking menu in Gnome, you're probably better off going for the 
pppconfig utility;  it appears less friendly but sets up a connection 
properly to be used with 'Modem Lights'.

(Again, if this is confusing, I can let you know more if you ask.)

Neil

PS  I've just disabled the ntp clock update on my machine - should have 
done that ages ago...  Thanks for giving me the nudge.

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