Problems connecting even on Localhost

[Ken McLennan]

G'day there One & All,

	I'm not quite a newbie with Linux. I've been using it at home for some 
years, but although I know a bit about how it works, I don't know enough 
to solve my current problem.

	I connect to the 'net via dialup account and until a day or two ago, 
all was fine. Yesterday I found that when using Hoary (I dual boot with 
Win XP) I couldn't get a connection worthy of the name. For some strange 
reason I found 40 - 70 bps to be just a tad too slow to be practical. To 
be precise, it was so slow that sites were disconnecting before I could 
load a page. Connections in Windows work fine, but I still can't get a 
decent connect speed on Ubuntu. Hence the modem & ISP aren't the problem.

	I recalled that I had used Webmin to review the services begun at 
startup, so I thought that perhaps I'd stuffed something up. (I don't 
know what, but I thought I'd look for anything that even resembled a 
modem or ppp setting). Lo & behold, I couldn't even get a connection to 
localhost so no Webmin!! 	

	At least I've confirmed the fault is at my end, not my ISP's since I 
wasn't online at the time =).

	However, that still doesn't help me sort out what the problem is. I use 
yawmppp to connect, and it worked fine. The logs it produces show that 
before connecting to my ISP there are several "crashes" as it calls 
them. The graphic of the little bomb is very descriptive I guess. 
However there don't seem to be any descriptions of what went wrong and I 
don't really know where to look.

	I know it's more than likely that I stuffed up a setting, but I don't 
know what. Any one have any ideas? Not only that, but how do I easily 
reset whatever it is if I can't use Webmin?

Hope to hear back soonish & thanks in advance,
Ken McLennan
Qld, Australia