Newbie would like guidence on connecting to my ISP from the terminal.
 

I have fc4 (kernal 2.6 .11 .27 LC1) on a linux certified laptop. I Created a Mywvdial .conf file and edited it after finding a modem in /dev/ttySLO ->/dev/pts/1 but I'm afraid it got saved in the root directory and I read somewhere that there is a linux ap that prevents dialing out from there( which makes sense to me). Anyway I want to delete that file and start again but I need guidence. I've been at this for a month and can't get online. I have earthlink as an isp and probably need a list of info from them too but I don't know what. I was hoping that after I edited the file there would be a script I could run but I guess not. If I ever learn this I'll make that my first challenge!

Hello,

First copy your Mywvdial.conf from root directory to your home directory [assuming your home directory id /home/madwac]:

then check if your regular user [say your regular user is madwac] is a member of modem and/or dialout group:

if not, add your user to modem and/or dialout group [you have to be root to make this].

You should be up and running now.

Thanks for your help Chief. I wonder if you could explain to me what the ./ means in the following line of code that the guy who sold me the pc told me to use if I wanted to put the file in the etc directory.
cp ./myWvdial.conf/etc/wvdial.conf
and then he went on to say "I usually like to specify the config file when I execute wvdial: "wvdial --config ./myWvdial.conf" I've never noticed this ./ before. Of course I'm lost in space here anyway until I can do some more reading.
For instance what would cp ./myWvdial.conf/home/madwac do?

That doesn't look right to me, the . before a file indicates one that is normally hidden and I thought they were only in the home directory. so the / probablly shouldn't be there. I think the code should look like this.
cp .myWvdial.conf /etc/wvdial.conf
this copies the hidden configuration file in your home directory "myWvdial.conf" to the /etc directory. Note there should be a space between the source file and the destination. You'll also need to be logged in as root to copy to the etc directory.