Getting on to the Net in Linux, like I do in Windows
 

Hello,

I get on to the Net in XP using it's "New Internet Connection" thing which puts an icon on my desktop. It uses a "point to point over Ethernet" connection to get me on the Net. This happened when I switched connections a while back. Earlier I had a different modem which had a "PPPoE" light on it, this one doesn't. So I'm guessing that XP is doing what the earlier one used to do, in software.

Now the thing is, on the last one in Linux and in XP, I could get on the net fine as part of the standard boot sequence without having to do anything - DHCP etc etc., whatever. *Now*, I can get on in XP only, clicking this icon which "Connects through WAN Miniport" blah blah, but..... Linux - I don't have any idea what to do.

How do I connect to the Net in Linux?

Previously you probably just made a normal ethernet connection to the box, which then made the pppoe connection, something like that -- that's why it was so "transparent". Now you need to create the connection using pppoe (ppp over ethernet), configure it a little like dialup connections were configured before adsl came along.

There are several programs that help in creating such a conncetion; I bet graphical ones too, but for a start you can check if you have a program called pppoeconf - it's a simple console-based tool that asks some questions which you answer, and once it's finished, you can connect. It needs to be run with root privileges (but it needs to be run only once to configure the connection), so this depends a bit on which Linux distribution you are using. On Ubuntu or other systems that prefer "sudo" over root logins run
or if your system does not have sudo configured, instead use
With sudo you need to type in your user password, with su you need to type in root user password.

The questions should be simple, and if you are unsure how to answer, pick up the default option. In the end it probably asks if you'd like to start the connection during boot process; answer yes for easy connection, or no if you want to start and stop the connection manually (the program instructs on how to do it).

If there is no pppoeconf in your system, see if there's pppoe-something-else installed:
That should print any executables with pppoe in the name. If (s)locate warns you that database is old or something, you can update it as root:
or use 'find' instead, which doesn't use a search database.

You should edit your LQ profile information and add the distribution you use there, it eases up answering your questions that might be distribution-specific.

Hope it helped at least a little :)

Thanks!
 

Wow thanks so much Bouncer :) - I haven't tried it yet but I will.
My distro is Fedora 7. I really wish there was a GUI tool for the whole thing like there is in XP so I can pop up a box to enable and disable the connection, - AND check how much bandwidth I'm using :) - do you think like Fedora 9 or something has something like this?

gpppoe
kpppoe
rp-pppoe

Graphical front ends to pppoe.. at least for configuration