Fwd: [nzlug] Dialup on Slingshot

3 Nov 2009

      Can't remember who was having problems with dialup a couple of
meetings back, but a similar issue has come up on the nzlinux mailing
list so this information may be useful to someone. Or you can bring it
along (again) to the saturdayworkshop end of year BBQ Nov 28th and
we'll take another look at it.

(useful ppp options down the bottom of the following mail)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Graham Lauder <gl(a)openopportunities.co.nz>
Date: 2009/10/22
Subject: Re: [nzlug] Dialup on Slingshot
To: NZLUG Mailing List <nzlug(a)linux.net.nz>

On Wednesday 21 October 2009 08:58:39 Mark Foster wrote:

[...]
...
Having been on the other side (Helpdesk'r for several years - including
for Slingshot ironically enough (though a very long time ago) - try it
from a helpdesk's POV.
- Probably nil experience with Linux and linux software.
- Fault unable to be duplicated from a windows box? (I think that's what I
read).
- Working from one OS and not another would point to an OS specific fault,
not an ISP specific fault.  I would doubt that many ISPs actually provide
helpdesk services with Linux in mind.
[....]

Yep all of the above, interestingly, I'll give them ups for one thing the
first guy I talked to had a pretty good shot at trying to help which was very
good considering that he was probably doing it blind not being able to pull
up an OpenSuSE desktop in front of him.
...
Have to say that my answer would've been similar at any of the three ISP's
I performed tech support for.
Unfortunately while there's essentially one way to configure dialup under
Windows, Linux offers too many gotchas around modem drivers, dialup
software, GUI vs CLI, for support staff to be proficient with the
environment (Unless, somehow, they have both time and inclination to
fiddle with many of these.)
Most helpdesk'rs I have known are afforded precious little professional
development time, so what they know = what they are experienced with.
(The social win, as it were, would be to improve linux experience levels
amongst those who work on helpdesks.  This will have a flow-on effect to
the capabilities the ISPs provide).
Agreed, toward that, I'm going to email the fix to them and the ppp/options
file,  you never know it may be useful to them.
...
Anyone know any ISPs who explicitly provide Linux tech support?  (And more
importantly, where that offer is not tied to the skills of one or two
individuals (aka SPOF's))?
I'm not sure here but is /etc/ppp/options common to all distros and/or Desktop
Environments.  I'm using KDE and Kinternet and the assumption is that all
distros running KDE should be the same.  Does the Gnome desktop use the same
location and options file?  That's obviously significant because of Ubuntu's
position in the market.  If I'm going to help the Helpdesk'rs that would be
useful for them to know.  One of the advantages of course is that we're
dealing with a text file.  A text file looks the same in windows or whatever.

Of course there are certain questions here,
Does the user know how to open a terminal and run it as a superuser/root ?
Does the user know how to use a text editor?
Does the user know what KDE or Gnome is?

Given that there are more and more "less than technical" endusers of Linux out
there, affirmative answers to all of the above are not so much a given any
more

However assuming a reasonable level of knowledge a process could be:

What's your Desktop environment: Gnome or KDE

KDE:
Open Konsole
Do su
Enter super-user password at request
type kate at the prompt
in the address field type /etc/ppp/options

Gnome :
Open terminal
do sudo gedit
Enter password at request
in the address field type /etc/ppp/options

then it's simply a matter of stepping through the text file.
...
From Johns mail
In KDE on OpenSuSE
...
=============
 lock                           (This one was already set)
 noauth                                 (same here)
 defaultroute                   (wvdial does this by default in any case)
 ipcp-max-configure 65  (This doesn't appear to be necessary)
 ipcp-accept-local              (uncomment this line)
 ipcp-accept-remote             (uncomment this one as well)
 idle 600                               (already set)
...
=============
So then, at least in my system

 receive-all                            (add this line)
 ipcp-accept-local              (uncomment this line)
 ipcp-accept-remote             (uncomment this one as well)

That's a relatively easy fix.  The question is, is /etc/ppp/options the same
on other distros, particularly Ubuntu. It would be good to know before I ping
this off to the Slingshot helpdesk.

Any other comments?

Cheers
GL

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