Re: SBC DSL with SuSE - How does it work?
From: Richard Steven Hack (richardhack_at_prontomail.com)
Date: 01/28/04
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Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 10:23:04 GMT
On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 01:06:10 -0800, David Spence
<spencede@nospam.hotmail.com> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I'm thinking about subscribing to SBC/Yahoo DSL and was wondering if anyone has
>gotten it to work with SuSE (since SBC do not officially support linux?)
>
>What is a good modem for SuSE? It looks like the choices are: Westell 516,
>Efficient 5260 and 4060USB (and Alcatel, but these appear to be either USB
>only or internal, and I would prefer to have an external modem with an RJ-45.)
I run Red Hat 7.3 but SUSE should be close enough. I got the
Efficient modem and they sent me a D-Link NIC as well even though I
already had a Broadcom onboard NIC - nice of them to send me another
NIC so I can now network my two machines...:-) The Efficient modem
works okay, but it gets HOT and can lock up until you remove all three
cables (NIC, DSL and power) and let it sit for fifteen or twenty
seconds - and sometimes much longer if it's overheated).
Definitely go for an external with RJ45 to NIC interface. USB and
internals not well supported on Linux, AFAIK.
I configured the NIC interfaces under Red Hat using ifconfig and
out-of-date instructions, not realizing that Red Hat had scripts set
up to do the configuring and starting and stopping.
One thing I had to watch for is that my Windows 98 said the D-Link was
one version and Linux thought it was another - which mattered because
the two different versions used two different kernel modules. I
browsed the kernel modules and found the right one.
The one thing I had to fix was to tell the config scripts that I was
getting my IP address from SBC's servers. The config GUI had an
option called "Dial Out To ISP" which confused me because I'm not
"dialing" out, I'm using DHCP to get an IP from the ISP. Once I set
it to "Dial Out", everything worked. You don't tell it to use DHCP
because that means use the DHCP server on YOUR machine, which is not
what you want - you're getting your IP from SBC's DHCP servers.
Current SUSE has a much better configuration setup for DSL - at least
I assume so, since I just tried the SUSE Live Eval CD and the ADSL GUI
didn't want to run for some reason, even though the Live CD installer
did scan for both my NICS and a DSL modem.
I was blown away by how fast the Knoppix live CD configured my DSL
when I tried it out - it took like 30 seconds. It scanned for my
NICs, scanned for a "PPPoE Access Concentrator" (i.e., DSL modem) on
both NICs, found the one on the D-Link, asked me some questions about
standard settings that I didn't even know the answer to (it said if
you're not sure, click yes, so I did - worked), asked for my user ID
and password, and Wallah! On the Net! Beautiful example of how Linux
can if it wants to be trivially easy to use. It was much easier to
configure SBC DSL on Knoppix than it was using the Enternet 300 client
on Windows - not to mention the Yahoo crap installer that bombed my
entire Windows 98 and forced a Registry restore.
I'm near a Central Office, so I get nearly full 1.5Mbps download
speed. One night I must have been the only person hitting the DSLAM
as I was getting bursts up to 600KBps.
I had trouble getting my version of Evolution working with SBC's email
account (seems not to want to send my user ID and password correctly),
but KMail seems to work okay.
Go for it, it will work. Just don't expect support from SBC. When I
was installing and the Yahoo crap bombed my Windows 98, I called
support and told them I didn't want the Yahoo crap, I just wanted to
install the DSL client. The rep said that by contract he couldn't
walk me though it, but he could tell where it was and how to install
it, which he did. No support was needed on the Linux side once I
figured out how to configure the eth0 and eth1 and ppp0 interfaces.
I do notice that every few reboots, the interface won't come up. I
think the modem gets locked into a state or maybe SBC's servers simply
don't respond fast enough for Linux to wait on them. After booting, I
can start the interface manually if I have to - works okay then.
-- Richard Steven Hack "Whatever does not kill me makes me stronger" - and YOU have not killed me!
- Next message: Holger Hoffmann: "Re: Linux Spyware"
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