It would appear that on Apr 28, Rogutės Sparnuotos did say:

Joe(theWordy)Philbrook (2010-04-28 02:21): <...>

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When/if connected via dialup, I'll be paying by the connected hour, so I don't want anyone I don't trust with the root password to be able to use it...

Offtopic: This "anyone I don't trust with the root password" sounds strange to me. There should be only one root...

<Not so off topic...> ;-7 I did specifically bring up the concept of trusting someone with root access (and I wasn't referring to a limited sudoer) But be that as it may, while I can imagine a few circumstances involving more than one admin with root privileges, in practice I've only got my personal Linux box. And since my life partner isn't very computer literate, that means I'm the only one I trust with my root password, so I don't want anybody but me jacking up my back-up isp bill...

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I'm hoping that All I'll need to do is open a terminal window, su to a root shell, type wvdial Then open a browser or email client in another window. And to be able to quickly pull the plug on the connection <...>

Actualy I'm thinking I should maybe get in the habit of doing that via $ su -c wvdial

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Do I need to worry about wvdial and/or other dial-up ppp connection messing with the broadband Ethernet setup?

ISPs usualy charge per minute, so there is no need to be in a hurry pulling the plug. Are you really getting nervous when thinking about dial-up, or am I imagining things?

Not at all. It's been so long since I bothered that I've forgotten almost everything I ever knew about Linux dialup except about how much cooperation I'll get from the ISP's tech dept. right after a let the word "Linux" slip past my lips... So yeah, when you add to that a shoe string budget, I'm willing to admit I'm just a tad nervous.

wvdial will not touch any of your network related configs (only the ppp ones), so if you will not use any other tools, your broadband will be safe. At least after reboot.

Good. Then I can afford 'some' empirical testing after all. ;-)

From what I've found online, and what little I can remember, wvdial should be available for just about any distro. So if I keep it's set up fairly simple, I should be able to clone a successful implementation to the other Linux installed on my multi-boot laptop.

So yeah, as long as you don't count set-up utilities such as wvdialconf, and if need be, minicom, I don't plan on using any other dialup tools...

wvdialconf has to be run only once. It should ask you for the telephone number, user and password.

That's good to know. From what I read in the man page I was under the impression that it would only configure the modem part of the wvdial.conf and that I'd have to manually edit in the login data...

Later, to connect, you simply run wvdial and wait for the connection (it will fetch the DNS settings, set the default gateway etc.). Then pressing ^C, it will disconnect and change the settings back to what they were.

So then, I won't need to specify the DNS, AND it will restore any such existing settings. (I knew that wvdial was the one for me...)

But, if you do not test dialing-up at home, it is likely that something will go wrong when you try connecting at your sister's (and there won't be any internet connection to seek help).

Absolutely. That was my plan. Else I wouldn't have worried about some brain flatulence causing me to accidentally have the Ethernet cable connected, while wvdial was active.

And are you sure the modem in your laptop is working and recognized by linux?

Not yet! :-( But if I can't get it working I've got my old external serial modem in one of the assorted junk boxes that clutter up my office. What I won't find though, is the manual for it <sigh> (I'd much prefer to be able to use the built in... (fewer things to lug around and all that)

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Could someone point me at the URLs of the other 'dialup' related documents that are supposed to be in the Arch Linux Wiki (since searching for 'dialup' didn't help me)?

Did you search for ppp?

Doh! And to think I didn't think of that. I knew I suffered from CRS... But now I'm thinking it must be getting worse... Actually though, I've never been particularly skillful at coming up with good search strings. But I still should have thought of that one. Thanks! -- | ~^~ ~^~ | <*> <*> Joe (theWordy) Philbrook | ^ J(tWdy)P | \___/ <<jtwdyp@ttlc.net>>

It would appear that on Apr 28, Rogutės Sparnuotos did say:

Since you haven't tested your modem yet, the first thing to do would be running minicom or some other serial terminal on your /dev/ttyS?, issuing the ATZ command and see if you get OK. There is no point worrying about anything else as long as you are not sure you have a working modem.

Yeah, that is the main problem here... I thought the solution would be to fall back on my external v92 serial modem BUT unfortunately I wasn't thinking about the fact that this laptop doesn't have a serial port connection to plug it into. (And not having 2 nickles to rub together at the moment makes new hw a non-solution...) Still, I looked into Linmodem and there is hope. scanModem suggests: Smart Link soft modem driver slmodemd But it looks like it might have to be reworked every time an update gave me a new kernel. And I need a set it and forget it solution that I can fall back on and or otherwise use to rarely to make that worth doing on any frequently updated system... Still my laptop has the room for 4 concurrently installed Linux distros (at current bloatware levels) And I'm only actively going to be upgrading 3... Arch, and PCLinuxOS, which are both rolling release models (though sometime this year PCLinuxOS is supposed to require a reinstall thanks to some major changes like the kde4 crap, But they haven't done that since 2007 so I guess they can be called a rolling release...) and Xubuntu which can at least sometimes be upgraded to the next release without totally starting over... So my plan is now to attempt to get slmodemd going on my existing Elive which isn't going to be upgraded any more but word serve as an outdated backup system which would make a good place to set-up a linmodem fix that stays fixed for occasional and back-up use. Failing that, I'll try the same thing with my current 2007 based PCLinuxOS installation, and let that become the static outdated backup. In which case the eventual 2010 PCLinuxOS, will overwrite my current elive... Either of those options would leave me with a few kde3 version tools to play with for those occasions when I want to remember that I used to like kde. The next fallback plan is to try to get slmodemd going with my current Xubuntu installation, which could become static by way of doing a clean install of the next 'buntu on the current elive partition. If That fails my next option is to build a 2nd Arch on the current elive partition and do the slmodemd on one of the Arch install which one won't get any more updates...

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I suppose you've setup your broadband in either rc.conf or netcfg. If that is the case, know that these setups are Archlinux specific and there is basically no software which will touch these. So you always get what you have specified in rc.conf after a reboot.

That's good to know.

And you _can_ have lots of modems and lots of ethernet cables connected to you computer, and still have your broadband working. With most setups, data packets to the internet go through the default route (try running 'route'), which is changed after a successful pppd connection and changed back after it closes (this is not wvdial specific).

Then if slmodemd works but I have wvdial issues, I can always try another dialer. Thank you for the good news. I needed something good to counter the negative energy that filled my very soul the moment I knew for sure that the {expletive deleted} 'personalities' at gateway build a "winmodem" into the high def sound card... <sigh> Thanks again -- | ~^~ ~^~ | <*> <*> Joe (theWordy) Philbrook | ^ J(tWdy)P | \___/ <<jtwdyp@ttlc.net>>