I recently installed linspire 5 on my dell inspiron 8600 replacing suse 9.1 and can no longer access web sites using my Ricochet service. When I connect to Ricochet I am able to ping any chosen address but not able to view any web sites, ftp, ssh, etc.

Here is some output:

/var/log/messages after inserting the pcmcia modem

Mar 1 22:27:51 linuxnb gconfd (root-6037): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults" to a read-only configuration source at position 2
Mar 1 22:30:53 linuxnb kernel: ttyS2 at I/O 0x3e8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A


cat of /proc/tty/driver/serial

0: uart:16550A port:000003F8 irq:4 tx:0 rx:0
1: uart:16550A port:000002F8 irq:3 tx:0 rx:0
2: uart:16550A port:000003E8 irq:3 tx:0 rx:0 CTS|DSR|CD
3: uart:unknown port:000002E8 irq:3
32: uart:unknown port:00000302 irq:3
33: uart:unknown port:00000302 irq:3
34: uart:unknown port:00000302 irq:3
35: uart:unknown port:00000302 irq:3
36: uart:unknown port:00000302 irq:3
37: uart:unknown port:00000302 irq:3
38: uart:unknown port:00000302 irq:3
39: uart:unknown port:00000302 irq:3
40: uart:unknown port:00000302 irq:3
41: uart:unknown port:00000302 irq:3
42: uart:unknown port:00000302 irq:3
43: uart:unknown port:00000302 irq:3

ifconfig output:

ppp0 Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
inet addr:168.253.20.109 P-t-P:192.168.1.1 Mask:255.255.255.255
UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:3
RX bytes:97 (97.0 b) TX bytes:113 (113.0 b)

PING yahoo.com (66.94.234.13) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from w2.rc.vip.scd.yahoo.com (66.94.234.13): icmp_seq=1 ttl=52 time=221 ms
64 bytes from w2.rc.vip.scd.yahoo.com (66.94.234.13): icmp_seq=2 ttl=52 time=201 ms
64 bytes from w2.rc.vip.scd.yahoo.com (66.94.234.13): icmp_seq=3 ttl=52 time=200 ms
64 bytes from w2.rc.vip.scd.yahoo.com (66.94.234.13): icmp_seq=4 ttl=52 time=130 ms

--- yahoo.com ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3003ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 130.004/188.617/221.523/34.819 ms

Kernel version

Linux linuxnb 2.6.10 #1 Wed Mar 2 22:37:07 PST 2005 i686 GNU/Linux

Does anyone have any idea's.

Thank You,
Sean

Sean,

I have been experiencing the exact same problem, and from what I can tell after doing extensive research, it's got something to do with the way linux (and *BSD) handles the "big fast UART" built into the novatel wireless Merlin for Ricochet PCMCIA card.

There's some more information about it at this website, but I'm not sure what the fix is for machines running the 2.6 kernel.

I've found that if you set the low_latency flag on the serial port, that will allow you to get speeds of approx 56kps, still crappy, but better than nothing.

Not sure if linspire includes the setserial command or not, but here's what I use in the /etc/rc.local file on Ubuntu.