Mepis 7 Kppp does not connect to the ISP, oh what do I do?
 

I have configured Kppp the same way that I configured it under Mandriva, it works there but on on Mepis. They are on the same HDD.

What do I have to do?

It may be just as well that it did not connect as I did not now of the update problem, just want to try out some flavors.

If I can't get it up I'll have to drop it and I don't want to. I am trying to get some flavors together that will work on dial up as we are very remote on this ranch in S.E. Montana. So are the few neighbors. Some might like to try something besides MS, but don't want too much hassle so I am trying to get a "kit" together.

I figure to install the ones that go on an external and then I can take it around with me.

what doesn't work?
is the modem recognized, is the driver loaded?

It dials but fails to connect during the negotiating period.

I do not have drivers. I had one of those so called modems, I mean winmodems on here, it is gone. I use a usr5610c (internal). It is a hardware modem and does not require drivers.

It is sometimes tough to get it recognized, I should have gone with an external, but it works great.

The biggest problem I have had is with Ubuntu, which is my primary OS. Most KDE systems hook right up. I got PCLOS gnome and it hooked right up with gnome ppp. Hardy was a bugger to figure but it works now.

This seems to be a Kppp problem to me and I know nothing about it except that it is a front end for wvdial as opposed to gnome ppp which is a front end for pppd.

I am not a big fan of KDE, don't ask me why, but it usually supports dial up better than gnome.

I would really like to get Mepis running if I can but this has got me stumped. I have reconfigured several times with little tweaks here and there but it just does not work out.

Maybe I should just wipe that stuff clean and start over with wvdial through terminal.

Take a look in the log files for errors

Where in flinderation do you find the log files. I am one of those people tha use gnome with a real file manager.

I am lost in this very pretty menu.

Right now I am on Mandriva, also KDE (4.1). It uses the same Kppp to hook up and has no problem. I did screw it up a bit ago going through it to check all the settings. They are no different than sthe ones in Mepis.

The only log I get there is the connection log window when dialing. There is no error listed there, it just will not connect. It dials and fails in the negotiating somewhere (no report where that I can find). Heck I might as well use windows. They want to hide everything too.

I really like the "lecture" you get when you use sudo. Reminds me of why I reformated the drive Vista was on.

in a terminal type
Make the connection and look at the output

That's good; its dialling, so you are accessing the modem correctly. Its probably either auth at the ISP or DNS that's not working.

Most of the internal modems do require drivers, but it has probably been autodetected, so that's fine...

Given that 99.99% of the time, external = hayes command set = no drivers, then external is better.

wvdial (like diald) is a dialler and is used to initiate a connection which runs the ppp protocol, and they can be used from the command line (which is what I used to do). pppd is a daemon (ppp daemon) which runs the ppp protocol.

If you are running wvdial (& I have my doubts, but then I haven't used dial-up for years, so things may have changed), then you might want to have a look at wvddial.conf to see if what is in there makes sense.

In particular, you should have specified somewhere DNS servers, otherwise you'll be able to connect, but names like 'www.google.com' will never be resolved to ip adresses and so will never be useful and networking won't (if you see what I mean).

This is the log result;
The password is correct. The reason for so many trys is that I rewrote the password every time. It has been updated in December but at the core is the same password we have always used. I know, not secure. There is nothing in our email that is important and i keep an eye on logins on the server.

The modem I am using is a hardware modem. It is a usr5610c. I put it in because the connexant that came, along with Vista, on this box would only get a download speed that topped out at 3.5K. This one goes at about that on a bad day and 4.4 on good days, today is so-so and we are at a steady 3.7K. On a day like today the connexant would not stay connected and ran at about 2.8K.

I never bothered to get it to work under linux because I had it on the way here when I decided that MS had given me the last hard time they were going to. I know right where to point the OS at the modem because I had to move it from (Win)port 6 to 1 as Ubuntu only supports ttyS0 through ttyS3 (win-port1 through 4).

I wrote it down and then never looked at the wvdial file. I will do that and report back.

I looked at the wvdial file. There were some things missing - phone#, password, user name. I made a back up file and then put those in. Made no difference.

On a side note; I had to do this from Ubuntu. Kwrite would not open the file, some glich in opening kwrite itself. sudo nautilus and I can get to any file anywhere and open with gedit. Yes, I know, not reccomended. What am I going to do, screw up an installation that does not work?

Also, I am a Blacksmith. We like blunt force tools.

I am not sure what that file is supposed to look like. The only file I have that I know is right is on a drive that is turned off in BIOS right now. I will go there on my way to bed and slap a copy here (a huge Hardy install that I boot this drive from. All of 5Gb, almost half of it is used) and in the Suse installation.

widget,

Try this:


1) simultaneously press the Alt+F2 keys.
2) in the Run Command box that pops up, type or copy and paste in the text below and then press the Run button.

kdesu kwrite /etc/ppp/peers/kppp-options

3) enter your root password when prompted for it, then press the OK button.
4) now in kwrite change: #noauth to: noauth save the change and quit kwrite.

(Credit this fix to kmathern at MEPISLovers Forum)

That seems to have done it!! Happy happy.

Now I can see what these forums for mepis are like. It is a pain to have to bounce from partition to partition to communicate. When I was setting up Ubuntu as a very raw newby ( as opposed to my status as just raw now) I had to manually switch HDDs from Vista to Ubuntu.

Thanks to every one for their help. I learned some new things, this is always a good thing.
Tom

widget,
I am glad that fix worked for you. I can certainly recommend the latest version of Mepis, Mepis 8. It needs exactly the same fix to that config file to get dial-up running but it is a far superior OS to M7.
It is good to know that you feel slightly less remote now than previously.

I got this CD is a bargain bundle from linuxcd.org just before the release of the new one (8). I intend to upgrade now that dial up is working.

I want to be able to tell folks around here that they can do something other than Vista. Dial up is a must. In this area of the county there are about 500 to 800 head of cattle per person. DSL is a dream. You can go with satalite. I know 2 people that do. Too pricey. The rest of the county is pretty much the same. The county seat (THE BIG CITY) has a population of 500.

I have a couple of external enclosures that seem to boot well on other boxes. I want people to be able to try the suckers out at speed. So far, I have 6 flavors, 7 if I can get Suse11.1 to work with dialup. I also have Fedora 10 but so far it has just pissed me off. Frugalware doesn't like something about my box, but maybe I can work around that, Suse was a fight to boot the CD.

I am real happy with Hardy and I like Intrepid. Others may want something that looks more like MS (I have known people with MS, a terrible desease). I figure to show them that there is a choice if they want it. If they don't, fine, I was happy for years with 98.

Vista was going to give me a stroke. I had to "authorize" myself to "authorize" myself and then click that I really did want to do this just to change the wallpaper. This is a security improvement? I realize that I am the biggest threat to the security of my box. At least with linux that risk does not include a 10lb sledge that I carry on the ranch truck.

Thanks again

widget,
When you say you are going to upgrade to Mepis 8, I do hope that you mean you are going to do a fresh install of M8 and not try to upgrade from M7?
I am sure that you have seen the "sticky" warning at the top of the Mepis section on LQ.
A fresh install of M8 after saving all your important stuff from M7 is the only way to go.

There are some useful tips here on how to migrate from M7 to M8 (you have probably seen them already).

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...epis-7-705660/

Just get that Mepis 8 32 bit CD ordered from LinuxCD.org!

beachboy2
Yes that is what I mean.

I have changed my sources to be safe and synaptic can't connect to the Etch repo. Tried it in apt-get and it couldn't either but did tell me that the repo was "moved permanently". I wonder where it is.

I had to reinstall Mepis because Suse screwed things up. What an obnoxious and aggressive bugger that is. I wiped it off, I don't need the hassle. I got it to install where I wanted it, but over night it hijacked my boot system and made it so I could not boot to Mepis or PCLOS. The other 3 I could recover and they are more important so I figured reinstalling was easier on these 2.

It was weird, kind of like Win overwriting the boot stuff. A bunch of things about SUSE (at least this 11.1)reminded me too much of Win. I left that to avoid a stroke.

Forget that stuff. Back to Mepis. Once again I had no luck with the mini command line. Alt-F2, it comes up, type in "kdesu kwrite /etc/ppp/peers/kppp-options", hit enter, enter password, kwrite comes up with a blank page. Went, once again to the terminal, type su, enter password, leave off the kdesu from command and there it is, clear as day.

Worked great, I am, right now on Mepis. I need to get on to PCLOS.
Thanks again
Tom