2 problems with 11.10 - advice?

[Dave Stevens]

Hi,

I've just installed 11.10 on two computers, dual-booting with Windows.  
On both 11.10 installs there is no gnome, as per spec. Both computers  
have no Linux connection to the internet, windows side works fine.

I think what I need to do is to download gnome-panel and install in on  
both to avoid the unwelcome intricacies of Unity. But I need to  
donwload it somewhere else then install in on both computers. So how  
can I achieve the efefct of, "sudo apt-get install gnome-panel" ?? I  
anticipate going to my local library, d/l onto flash drive, go home  
and copy and install.

I suppose I'll need to know about the repo URL and a command to  
download the tarball (is it a .pkg file?) and then how to install it  
locally on each machine. Advice welcome.

The connection issues are different. The old desktop computer has a  
USR 56k internal dial-up modem on COM3: Works fine in Windows. I've  
used pppconfig to make a configuration file that has as far as I know  
the right settings for initialisation and dialing and so on. But when  
I run "pon pathcom" where pathcom is the ISP name, I see no effect at  
all. syslog shows a failure with error message 2, otherwise  
unspecified. Likewise no clue how to proceed and open to any and all  
advice. Will even rtfm if I know where to find one.

TIA,

Dave


-- 
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
   Krishnamurti