[arch-general] dual ISP: 1)cable broadband (DHCP) 2){shudder} dial-up (ppp?) Please help!

[Joe(theWordy)Philbrook]

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which isn't going to be upgraded any more but word serve as an outdated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installation, and let that become the static outdated backup.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...

> <...> 

> 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

-- 
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|   <*>   <*>       Joe (theWordy) Philbrook
|       ^                J(tWdy)P
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