Modem and Network Connection

[Moniz Family]

Peter Garrett wrote:

>On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 18:48:22 -0500
>"John M. Moniz" <john.moniz at sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
>  
>
>>I recently installed Ubuntu 6.06 from a live CD to my mother-in-law's PC 
>>and there were a few things I am not yet happy with. But I'll just stick 
>>to the modem and networking issues.
>>    
>>
>
>Dial-up seems not to be a priority for the Gnome devs, for some reason. In
>Ubuntu this has always struck me as odd, since a high proportion of
>"humans" still have to use it.
>  
>
This is a little worrisome since Ubuntu is being flogged by many as the 
best distro for new users.

>Two possible solutions, neither optimal.
>
>1) install kpp, the KDE dial-up tool. It works. Downside: you have to get
>various qt/KDE libraries with it... may or may not put you off if you have
>bad connectivity in the first place.
>  
>
I have used kppp in the past - very good utility. It may be too much to 
download unless I bring her PC to my home DSL.

>2) Use the "pppconfig" command line tool to configure dial-up - this is
>what I always used before May last year when I finally got DSL.
>
>sudo pppconfig
>
>... answer the questions, leave out the name of the provider, unless you
>have more than one.
>  
>
It's already configured using the default gui Network Connection tool. 
But maybe I need to do this to use pon and poff commnds?

>... add your user to the dialout and dip groups to avoid having to give a
>password each time you dial. ( This appears to be OK by default, but check
>anyway)
>  
>
Interesting. So that's how I avoid the password nuisance....

>... the command to dial up is "pon" - "poff" to disconnect. Make a couple
>of launchers for these commands ( I sometimes used a green and a red apple
>as icons ;-) )
>
>pppconfig seems to give the best results - some people like wvdial but
>personally I didn't. YMMV and all that .
>
>Peter
>
Some great suggestions (from Derek and Anthony also). I'm pretty sure 
they will do what I need. I like the pon and poff idea (have to be 
careful how you say that), with a link on the desktop. I will also try 
GnomePPP.

Thanks,

John.