[Techtalk] Linux and home Internet connections

[Kathryn Andersen]

On Mon, Aug 22, 2005 at 11:57:44AM +0100, Dan wrote:
> I live in the UK, and I'm planning on getting a home Internet connection
> for a Linux box - not a permanent connection, just something I would use
> a few times a week for web surfing.
> 
> I have some questions before starting:
> 1) What type of connection is easiest to setup/configure (e.g., ADSL)?
> Is there any that uses a standard network cable and DHCP?

Well, as far as I understand, ADSL *is* a permanent connection.
If you only want to surf the web a few times a week, then you're better
off with dialup, probably.

Dialup requires a modem (as distinct from an ADSL modem, which is a
completely different piece of hardware).  There are two kinds of dialup
modems: internal, and external.  An internal modem may or may not have
been built into your computer when you bought it.  In my experience,
internal modems are much more trouble than they're worth, for two
reasons:
(1) you can't reset them when something goes wrong -- in order to reset
the modem, you have to reboot the computer.
(2) most internal modems nowadays are WinModems, and most WinModems are
incompatible with Linux.

An external modem, on the other hand, is dead simple, and is pretty much
guaranteed to work.  Plug it into the power, plug one cable into the
phoneline, plug the other cable into your computer's serial port, and
that's it for the hardware.

As for the software, there are *numerous* Linux programs which can be
used to run dialup connections.  I favour wvdial; there are a few
graphical programs around too, and I suspect that they tend to use
wvdial as a backend.  But whichever one you use, the configuration
basically boils down to telling it the phone number used by your ISP,
and your login id and your password, and that's it.

Kathryn Andersen
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