I have installed SUSE Linux 10, and I have a problem with modem. I can't connect to Internet. I don't know how to setup the modem. In my menu, for dial up, I have two options: KInternet and Kppp. Witch to use for surfing over the web?? When I try to connect on Kppp, the Error message is: unable to open modem??
What should I do?

send me email at: nikola.pasic@sezampro.yu

Both Kppp and Kinternet can be used for internet connection
In fact Kinternet uses Kppp
I use Kinternet because you can set it so that it dials on demand
By that I mean if you start a browser or email program dialup connection will be automatically initiated ONCE WE HAVE HELPED YOU GET ON LINE I will suggets to you settings for Kinternet that will help keep browsing costs down and help you keep control of your system going on line

FIRST LETS GET YOUR MODEM UP
Start by ensuring it is plugged in to the computer
check that its power is on ( internal or usb modems get power from the computer so if yu have one of these dont worry about power)
check that your fone line is properly plugged in and test it with a fone to ensure that it gives dialtone

I am running SUSE 9 something but assume that 10 wont be much different

On bottom bar far left click the green ball suse button which will pop up your programs menu

scan up you will see CONTROL CENTER right click
you will get after a few seconds a menu left click on INTERNET & NETWORK

Another menu will appear
left click on YAST2 modules at bottom of this menu
another menu appears
I am running an old clonk of a machine so these menus take a second or two to appear if you have a nice fast machine it will be immediate
find NETWORK DEVICES and left click for the next menu to appear
this new menuwill have things like DSL ISDN etc look for MODEM and left click on it
A message window will appear telling you you need superuser privledges to perform this function
at Bottom left third of screen is a button marked ADMINISTRATOR MODE
left click it
A window appears for you to enter your root password followed by RETURN

The working area of your screen will now be outlined in red As a warning that any careless action can do harm to your system because you are now running as superuser BE CAREFULL READ EVERY THING ON THE SCREEN CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU PUSH ANY BUTTONS

At top of screen it will say INITIALISING MODEM CONFIGURATION
A list will appear with a little arrow that moves down the list as YAST scans your sytem for modem INFORMATION

If your system is slow like mine this process can take more than a minute
when the little arow has reached the bottom of the list

The yast window will have a top half and a bottom half
IF YOUR MODEM IS NOT ALREADY configured it will show the available modem in the top half of the screen
If you are lucky thats what you will get and you must press the button marked CONFIGURE Look for it carefully dont click on some other button
YOU might have to answer some questions and fill in some boxes or putticcks in little square or round windows
I cant help much on this because it depends on the modem you have
When in doubt look for a button marked DEFAULTS and click on it YAST can usually do most of the work for you automatically

WHEN I GO TO THIS SCREEN On my sytem I get the following

because I already have a modem configured my top window says OTHER (not detected)
My botoom window reads
USROBOTICS 56K fax EXT
configured as modem0 with provider TELKOM
MODEM0 MEANS IT IS THE FIRST MODEM ON MY SYSTEM
telkom is the name of my internet service provider

If YAST Gave you a similiar set of messages then you MODEM IS CONFIGURED and KINTERNET CANNOT SEE IT but lets have you try above steps before going further


YAST WILL CONFIGURE your MODEM
when you can see its done its task click the FINISH BUTTON at right of screen near the botttom

ok, thank you for advice....

now, I have configured my modem, and when I tryed to connect over the Kinternet, a little yellow thunder flash above the icon and it wont connect.
what is the next step??

thanks...............

If I have understood correctly yu now have a small icon on the righthand side of yor bottom bar or panel as they call it
My Icon looks like a small two pin electic plug but yor later version may look different
Now here is the great thing about Kinternet when yu have that little thunder flash it means your modem is switched on and available to go on line
If yu left click on that icon the thinder flash will disappear meaning yu have switched off the modem access
Left click again and its on and the little flash is back
TRY IT ON OFF ON OFF
I am now going to proceede as if this is infact what yu have
Before we actually try it out to see if its working let me explain what we are expecting if all the other things needed for an internet connection have been set
The way I have Kinternet setup is :
I have it dial on demand by demand I mean when the email program or the browsers want to go online Kinternet innitiates dialling and connecting on request from these programs and also from KGET .Kget being a program that downloads for yu from FTP sites
I also have it set so that when I log in to the computer Kinternet is automaticaly placed on the bottom panel but is off (no flash)
I got a paranoiya in my windows days with spy ware and other things dialling out whenever they wanted running up my fone bill and sending or getting information without telling me what it was
With Kinternet off no programs or any thing else can dial out without my permision.
I give permision by clicking on the KINTERNET ICON to set it to on -the little flash appears .Kintermet does not dial untill requested to do so by a browser or other program that is supposed to go onto the net
and I can now innitiate a browser or email program
In the browser as soon as I click a bookmark or home page icon the browser innitiates dialling
In the Email program ( I use the mail program attached to KONTACT) it starts dialling as soon as I click the ICON to fetch mail in.
If I have forgotten to swith Kinternet on the browser and the email program report an error "unknown adress " or something similiar. when that happens I left click once on kinternet to swith it on and on the browser I click the reload button .On the email program Having switched on Kinternet I click again the FETCH MAIL ICON
When Kinternet dials and connects The little flash changes in to another plug ( the icon now looks like two plugs pluged together and as data starts to transfer the plugs show little rippels sybolising the data flowing

Another setting that works nicely with all of the above is that I have set things so that when I am on line browsing a web page or as now typing this reply to yu the modem sees zero internet activity and Kinternet switches off line after 90 seconds.I have decided on this time because my Telephone company charges one minute fee for the ffirst minute and then by the second there after
By disconnecting after one and a half minutes I amsavuing metering charges
the moment I do anything on the screen that needs reference to the web page again the browser innitiates dialling becuase it finds itself off line
I can see I am off line because the little flash appears
Remember the flash means Kinternet is not on line but it is ready to go online
As I brows and read things ( I read quit slowly or look at the pictures or what ever my sytem gets off line and redials when I do something that needs it connected again
You might want to do it differently but watch out how yu set things because SUSE wants to connect when yu boot up and login and then stay connected -That would be costly to be sitting on line when yu are not even using the internet

So lets see if anything is missing in your set up by trying to cause kinternet to dial out
FIRST click on Kinternet and get the little flash showing its on
now click on your Web browser
If your web browser has a "HOME PAGE SET " it will try to go there

If you set your modem up so that it speaker is on you will hear the shrill noise it makes as it dials and communicates -It sounds a little likethe noise that FAX MACHINES MAKE
If yor Browser does not have a "home page" look for a Bookmarks button and select a bookmark if there are any preinstalled usually it will have at least one which should take yu to the SUSE or KDE homepages
If yu have no book marks just enter www.google.com in the adress window of yor browser .
The browser itself should change the url and show the complete thing starting with HTTP etc
If after a few seconds it does not innitiate dialling yor browser will give an error message about Unknown adress. TRY clicking the RELOAD BUTTON
all browser have one it looks like an arrow coiled into a loop

If it does not work dont dispair it is because yu have other setup things to do
I will guide you thru them later but here is what they will be
YOUr service providers fone dialling number
chat script which will be inside a program called WVDIAL
Kinternet uses wvdial to actually do the dialling
Because Kinternet is giving yu the little flash it is saying it is ready which means it is in all probability seeing the modem ok but we may have to actually check that later
there is Kppp which is used by KInternet to run the internet communication protocol and Kinternet uses it for that purpose it may be playing up in some way
LINUX IS WONDERFULL ONCE YOU GET THE KNOWLEDGE BUT CAN BE Disheartening for a beginer because unlike windows where they hide every thing in LINUX you have to be INTOUCH with everything to get it to work
MANY PROBLEMS IN settin up a new LINUX and even later on installing new programs come down to LInux requiring PERMISSIONS for everything
EVERY program has to have permission to run every other program and yu as a user has to have permision to run all those programs
If things dont work after you have tried starting up a browser dont be disheartened - I know yu will be anxiouse to get on line but yu are now in a learning process that leads yu to great satisfaction and a feeling of superiority when yu have mastered all the settings because yu will actually know why they are there and what they do
I aM TIRED NOW SO i AM GOING TO LEAVE OFF AND LETT YU TRY SWITCHING kINTERNET ON THEN INNITIATE A BROWSER
iF IT DOES NOT WORK TRY TO FIND WHERE YU HAVE TO PUT IN DIAL UP NUMBERS AND CHAT SCRIPTS
Tip right click on the Kinternet icon -yu will get a menu explore those options
a bit -because that is where we will be gioing if yor sytem is still not working TOmorrow

My icon for Kinternet is like yours (two pin electric plug), and it's placed in left part of the bottom bar. But beside that icon, when I type a password and click "connect", the little flash appears, but after about 1 second it's DISSAPEARD.

When I click on "connect", I tryed to run web page, but it wont open...
Then, I got on my mind to view log and it's says:

SuSE Meta pppd (smpppd-ifcfg), Version 1.59 on (none).
Status is: disconnected
trying to connect to smpppd
connect to smpppd
Status is: disconnected
Status is: connecting
Status is: disconnected
pppd[0] died: pppd options error (exit code 2)

I don't know if this is something witch can help you, but here it is.
I was looking for something else to configure for Kinternet or Network, but I didn't find anything what's relative with modem settings....

my regards.......

Did yu try just switching it on by left clicking so yu see the flash
Then go and start a browser HOPEFULLY the browser will use kinternet to go on line
Left clicking on my Kinternet icon does nothing except switch the flash on and off
Right clicking on the icon gives a menu of all sorts of things
I am puzzeled about having to enter a password
Tell Me is KINTERNET asking for a password ?
If it is I would recommend yu do away with that but as I dont know why it is asking for a password I could only guess that the Kinternet setup has been made to ask for it
TRY THIS right click on the Kinternet ICON it will give yu a menu
Half way up the menu is settings
scroll up to settings and a side menu appears with two choices
VEIW CONFIGURATION AND CONFIGURE WITH YAST
click on view configuration and yuo will get a window
in that window near the top is an item "ask password"
on my sytem that has NO next to it if yours says yes then yu will have to go back and select the option that says configure with YAST

I expect that the reason it is dying ids that it is timing out
there will be TIME OUT SETTING WHEN YU GO IN TO CONFIGURE kinternet WITH YAST
SET THAT TIME OUT TO A GOOD FEW MINUTES FOR EXAMPLE ABOUT 3 MINUTES OR 180 SECONDS

But try first to see what happens when yu try to brows with a web browser
I never innitiate dialling directly on KINTERNET the browser does it
all I do is switch Kinternet on by left clicking
Let me know

Kinternet is asking for password becouse I set it up so. That is the password for service provider. I have a habbit to leave password question. But It's not a problem. I have change it, and now, Kinternet is not asking for. I set the time-out value too.

When I click on Kinternet icon (left click), flash is appeard, but only for less then one second and then disappeard it self. I tryed also to connect from web browser typing the web address and it won't work.

I don't know whats the problem, but I know it's starting to make me nervous...

regards.....

Dont get nervouse or despondent your sytem is just like mine and mine is working very very nicely with lots of usefull things ,so now it is only setting
we must work out which ones of the setting still must be done
I am going to go into my sytem and check what settings can cause the flash to go off by itself and will send yu more info later today

I have been going thru my sytem looking at settings
I have found several that could cause the flash to go off by itself
We have to go back andgo thru all the settings for modem
You might feel impatient because you have already done all these but I will be giving yu what is in my sytem for yu to compare with yours
My system is working very very nicely so I think it is a good setting to copy

LET US START
right click Kinternet icon
select settings then select configure with yast
it will ask for root password
Yast2 screen appears "network configuration"
select modem
YES I KNOW YU ALREADY DID MODEM but I found settings here which are causing the problem

Innitialising Modem configuration screen appears
now yu will get the screen we saw once before and the bottom window will show the detail of yor already configured modem
below this bottom window is a button "change" select change
screen now has heading "modem configuration overveiw"
this screen has upper and lower window
My entry in upper window is modem0Modem Telkom
watch for capital and lower case letters where i have uppercase yu must have uppercase
Telkom is name of my internet service provider so yours should have the name for your one in place of Telkom
Below upper window are buttons ADD EDIT DELETE
click edit
You now have screen "Modem Parameters"
top line I have /dev/ttyS0
this is important uppercase and lowercase notice tty S 0 number 0 not letter o
capital S not lower case
next line is dial prefix with nothing in the window
lower own DIAL MODE black dotr next to tone dialling

Special settings box X speaker on
X detect dialtone
Just below that is button marked details click it

NEW SCREEN baud rate 115200
Init1 ATZ
Init2 ATQo V1 E1 SO=0 &C1 &D2+Fclass0
Init3 is blank
little box just below X user control ( this box must be selected)

dial prefix regular expression is blank
if yu changed anything here click "apply"
But YU can help me by keeping a note of what was there before yu changed and what yu changed it to

now click button at bottom marked BAck
NOw click button marked NEXT
New screen now has heading "Select Internet provider"
On my sytem there is Black dot by "CUSTOM PROVIDERS"
It depends on where yuo are
If your country and provider name can be found in the left hand window the you select it there
on my system I have to make the entries so I have "custom providers " selected

Click next
and yu get a sreen headed

'provider Parameters"
top box
name for dialling Provider0
provider name Telkom
phone number inthis box is te number i dial for telkom
Username in this box is my full username for TELKOM
Password HAS STARS KEEPING My password secret
NOTE THAT THE NAME AND PASSWORD HERE IS THE ONE FOR YOUR ISP NOT THAT FOR YU LOGGING ONTO YOUR COMPUTER
JUST BELOW IS ABOX labeled "ALWAYS ASK FOR PASSWORD" it must be blank
In these windows yuo can click and type in the information to change it if yu need to
If yuo change anything then Look for the APPLY button at bottom of screen and click it
If alll is correct click Button marked "NEXT"
YOUR SCREEN now has HEADING " Connection Parameters"
I actually think we aRE GOING TO FIX THE TROUBLE HERE

PROVIDER TELKOM
x DIAL ON DEMAND
iF THE DIAL ON DEMAND IS NOT SET THEN CLICK ON IT TO MAKE IT x

x Modify DNS when connected must be clicked on
Automatically retrieve DNS must be blank

NAME SERVERS
First 196.43.1.14 second 196.43.1.11
The numbers I am giving are those for my ISP
I give my numbers so you can see the format four groups of digits seperated by dots
you must get the correct ones for yor sytem from your service provider .phone and tell them yu need your DNS server numbers

Below that stupid mode is blank ie not selected
external firewall interface is blank not selected
IDLE TIME OUT is 120 seconds
Just below that is IP Details button click it

new scren headed "IP Adress settings"
X dynamic Ip adress
local Ip adress and Remote Ip adress are blank
BELOW THAT X Default Route

If your sytem still has problem we willhave to look at default route else where
but now if you have changed anything click apply or ok and apply on any othjer screen that appears
now you can look for a place to click FINISH or ABORT to get out of YAST

We now have one more thing to check
I know yu are tired of it but hang in there IT is very much worth it
YOU will swish through this sort of thing by yourself as yu get more used to LINUX
We have to now check yor PROXY setting and the only way I know how to get there is the long way
So LETS GO
on bottom bar selct green SUSE ball that activates your main program menu
select control center
select internet-network
select PROXY
Connect to the internet directly should be selected with a black dot in the box if it is not so click it
The moment yu click on it a button will appear at bottom of screen "apply"
click apply to make yor settings permanent
In case I have slipped and forgotten to tell yu in the above text
whenever yu change anything in Yast it gives yu an apply button you must always click apply to make yor changes permanent
NOW YU can exit Yast By any way yu can

I believe the following settings will have fixed the problem
DIAL ON DEMAND
MODIFY DNS
DYnamic Ip adress
and DEFAULT ROUTE
all selected
WHEN MAKING CHANGES TO SETTINGS IN LINUX IT is always advisable to shutdown and restart your computer to ensure changes take effect because many settings only get recognised when the sytem boots up
I am never sure so to make sure I just restart the computer

Ok..... Everything is set up like yours, except "wait for dial tone" (I turned it off) because our telephone line doesn't support that. On my Win XP that option was turned off if I wanted to go online.

My Kinternet is working, but only ON - OFF, I still can't reach my ISP. The flash is working. If I do left click it appears, again left click on icon and the flash disappear. Beside the two pin plug icon I have a little blue letter "D". I supposed that that is there because of settings for DNS.

I tryed with browser to open the web page but nothing happend.
I don't hear any sound at my modem (you know, undefined sound when connecting).

I supposed that you are going to sweat now because of my f.cking system...
I hope it's going to resolve fast.....

p.s. this is the log of Kinternet

SuSE Meta pppd (smpppd-ifcfg), Version 1.59 on linux.
Status is: disconnected
trying to connect to smpppd
connect to smpppd
Status is: disconnected
Status is: lurking
pppd[0]: Plugin passwordfd.so loaded.
pppd[0]: Renamed interface ppp0 to modem0
pppd[0]: Using interface modem0
Status is: lurking
pppd[0]: local IP address 192.168.99.1
pppd[0]: remote IP address 192.168.99.99
pppd[0]: Starting link
Establishing connection due to activity.
Status is: connecting
pppd[0]: Removed stale lock on ttyS0 (pid 7018)
pppd[0]: --> WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.54.0
pppd[0]: --> Initializing modem.
pppd[0]: --> Sending: ATZ
pppd[0]: --> Sending: ATQo
pppd[0]: --> Re-Sending: ATZ
pppd[0]: --> Modem not responding.
pppd[0]: Connect script failed

You are quit clever
WE together have actually solved the modem setup[ and the Kinternet problem quit nicely
I have come on line to reply quickly to yu becuase I am so pleased at progress
I normally do not go on line untill after 7 pm week days because it cost r21 pr hour before 7 pm and only r7 after &pm til 7am next day I will work onthe next problem and come back with Ideas tonight

My Kinternet log shows exactly like yours except when i connect
it sends ATZ and the modem comes straight back OK
it then sends the innitialisation string and the modem replies OK
your modem is not responding
Kinternet and wvdial are working correctly so we must look at the modem
There are two connections to the modem that we have to investigate
HARDWARE and also SOFTWARE
Part of the hardware connections is the cable and connectors and power to the modem please check them
Another part of the hardware to the modem is that it can still be connected to the wrong port
I told you to put in ttyS0 but I did not think to ask yu what Yast actually found whenit searched for the modem
You need to actually check that the modem is on com1 (ttyS0 in liuux)
What sort of modem is it internal or external does it plug to com1 serial multiplug or to USB ?
There is also a software connection that can go wrong
even though the modem is there
you notice in yor Kinternet log it renames ppp0 to modem0

I was quiet surprised to see that, but checking my Kinternet log it also does that and because my one works it has to be OK
In the past with other distros of linux I have had great trouble with getting the software to send the data for the modem by the correct route to reach the modem hardware correctly
your sytem is sending the ATZ and it is not reaching the modem

There is one thingn that is worrying me Inour interchange you mentioned that not checking for dial tone was a setting on your windows sytem
There is NOthing wrong with NOT CHECK DIAL TONE most times it works fine
BUT IF YOUR MODEM COMES FROM A WINDOWS SYTEM it might be what is known as a WINMODEM designed to work with windows only
There are clever linux people who can make such modems work on linux but it would be beyond me
Let me know asap what your MODEM is
best way is to gsend me copy of that modem set up screen you got by going to Kinternet icon right click select settings select configure with yast2

top window should say
not detected
bottom window will have some detail of your modem
CAn yu remember if on innitial set up YAST found modem actually on ttyS0
or did we tell Yast to set it there ?
YOU can NOW TEACH ME SOMETHING how do yu get copy of yor KINTERNET log into the email on this website I want to send my one to you so yu can actaully see whole thing when it actually connects
What the log yu sent me shows is that KInternet is working fine as is WVdial

First to explain you how did I copy Kinternets log into email:
Right click on two pin plug icon for Kinternet in the bottom taskbar. Select and click "view report". A new window appears named "Log-Kinternet". In the bottom of the window you have two buttons. The left is "Save to file" and the right "Close". Click the left, "Save to file". A new window appears. Just select the location and click "Save".

My modem has a following configuration (this is windows configuration):
The name is Generic SoftK56. The location is: PCI Slot 5 (PCI bus 2, device 4, function 0). COM Port Number is COM3. I don't know is this something of meaning, but Flow control is Hardware.

Is it possible that my modem is software modem or Winmodem?
What do you think??

my regards......

p.s. if you want you can give me email address to send you the picture of Coniguration-Kinternet, because I don't know if I can posted it here

I am sorry it looks like mad an error
I should have checked what you actually got when Yast searched for modem on your system
If you followed my instruction and entered ttyS0 for modem then modem is in wrong place
Your windows set up places it on com3 so we should have entered ttyS2
windows counts ports 123 ,linux and all others go 01234 etc
yor windows says Softk56 that does look like a winmodem but let us check it out
The problem is we told Ysat to set it to wrong tty so there is a chance that changing that setting to ttyS2 will work
Becareful the S is capital
Linux also has adresses ttys2 which is a different software place
Before you make changes try to email me the info in bottom window of modem setup screen
my email is llewellyn.lee@telkomsa.net
try changing that setting ttyS0 to ttyS2
then try opening a browser to go on line
Remeber in Yast you must click the APPlY button when yu want changes to take effect also to be sure the change is recognised shut down and restart the computer before trying to test it

If that does not work then there is one more thing to try
make a note of all the settings we have done
go to the modem setup screen via Kinernet icon and remove the modem yes delete it
Now start again right from the begining of the steps you did to configure modem
Let Yast tell you what it found and where
SEND THAT INFO TO ME BY DIRECT EMAIL
mY EMAIL IS llewellyn.lee@telkomsa.net
then tell Yast to configure it as it found it
Then you must check the settings that make Kinternet work
These being dial ondemand timeout and proxy as before

When you try to use a browser to go on line yu can check Kinternet log
The command ATZ is folowed By OK
then a configuration string followed by Ok
The OK will be the MODEM responding back acknowledging it accepted the signals
If that happens we will have a party I will buy you a glass of wine and some cheese
It is possible that YAST will tell you it could not find a Modem
Usually somewhere Yast will give you a place to choose from a list .If you can get such list then you can look see if there is a generic soft modem
If you find one tell yast to install it

If all above fails then you can do two things
on linux questions at top there is a link marked HCL meaning harware compatibility list -- check if you can find your modem in there
Second thing is to start a new thread at linux questions asking for help to make gENERIC softK56 MODEM WORK
tHERE ARE PEOPLE HERE THAT CAN MAKE ANYTHING WORK

iF THIS THREAD IS ENDING i WOULD LIKE TO KEEP TOUCH WITH YOU TO HEAR HOW YU GO ON PLEASE SEND ME BY DIRECT EMAIL YOR EMAIL ADRESS
On the other hand maybe we just keep this thread going so as to help other people who get the same problem
They will get to here and will find your reply about the modem usefull and also if you tell me how you solve it then others can read it and follow your path

It comes out that my modem IS a winmodem.
I will find the drivers and install them.
Thanks for help..
Bye, Bye