I just installed a US Robotics 5637 external modem on Ubuntu 8.1. It was detected without problem and shows dev/ttyACMO as the device on the Gnome PPP settings. The init string shows as
ATQ0 V1 E1 SO=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0

When I use it to dial a number, it connects to the number but also sounds a beep about every second or so that I think may be related to making a fax call. I'm a bit of newbie at this, so I'm not sure what it is.

Is there some way to avoid this beep?
TIA
Ted Asner

I use wvdial, but since Gnome ppp was only 84kb, I installed it and tried it out with the same modem and same OS. I'm on a Dell XPS Gen2 laptop, no beeping here. Have you tried different USB ports?

Thanks much. By accident, while trying different setups, I cancelled the Gnome PPP screen after it had connected and was ringing a number. The beeping disappeared. It's a quick workaround.

wvdial according to what I've read seems to be the program that GPPP is based on. Does it work the same way, or is it better? For instance does it let you store many numbers that caqn be dialed with not much more than a click or two? If it's not already available on Ubuntu 8.1, where is it?

As long as I seem to be picking the brain of a rather experienced user in this area, I think there is no Fax program like I use on a Windows machine (Mighty Fax or eFax) available on Linux short of paying a monthly fee to eFax or some such, which isn't much of a choice since I send perhaps 3 or 4 faxes a year.

If this all is too demanding, let me know or ignore it. ;-)
Thanks again.

Rumour has it...yes, Gnome-ppp uses wvdial as it's backend. Wvdial is command line, Gnome-ppp is a front end (GUI). Below is what the /etc/wvdial.conf file looks like if you've never configured wvdial:
If your /etc/wvdial.conf file looks similar to the one below, then that confirms Gnome-ppp uses wvdial, also, check in synaptic via System/Administration to see if wvdial is installed. It is possible that Gnome-ppp just uses/creates the /etc/wvdial.conf file even if wvdial is not installed, I've set up dial-up networking through networking in Fedora Core 6 without installing wvdial and it used/created the wvdial.conf file:
To install wvdial you would need to update your repository information with command: sudo apt-get update or by hitting the reload switch in synaptic which is a GUI front end for apt, then you would see it as an available application in synaptic's lists, or you could install it and it's dependencies from command line with command: sudo apt-get install wvdial.
If you need to use different ISP phone numbers, it may just be easier to make the necessary changes in the Gnome-ppp window. In the complete /etc/wvdial.conf file example I posted above I edited it to reflect your question by adding another number, the one with a hash (#) at the beginning will not be used, in order to use a different number you would need to issue command: sudo gedit /etc/wvdial.conf to open the wvdial.conf file in an editor as super user and remove the hash in front of the number you want to use, then add a hash to the number you don't want to use, hit save and run wvdial to dial out.
If you really want to try wvdial, you just need to install it, run command: sudo wvdialconf /etc/wvdial.conf to have it configure things and create the /etc/wvdial.conf file, edit the file to add ISP information, then issue command: sudo wvdial to dial out.

Also, open System/Administration/Synaptic_Package_Manager and put 'modem dialer' in the Quick search field at the top to see what all dialers are available. I don't fax from computer as it's not always running and I have a $300.00 Brother fax machine. Mgetty may be the application you are looking for.