How can I get wvdial and ppp packages if the only internet access I have is with a windows machine? TIA

This site may be helpful: http://www.ubuntuupdates.org/package...in/base/wvdial

You can download the packages using the Windows machine, copy them to a flash drive, and take them to the Ubuntu system. Then double-click on the *.deb file to launch the installer. You may, however, run into dependency problems and have to repeat the process several times to get all of the files...

I've not tested this, but have done similar things to get data from one system to another when conventional means fail...

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Thanks for the link. I downloaded it and copied the file to my Linux machine. Worked with no problems.

Like the OP I'm using Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit, two questions:

The file name is wvdial_1.61-4 build1_amd64.deb. AMD64 appears to refer to the CPU, can this version be used with a 64 bit Intel chip?

Double clicking on the DEB file produces no reaction. My software center is aware of wvdial but will not install it either. Any way around this?

TIA

The "AMD64" does indeed appear to apply to the CPU, but it works equally well with the Intel CPU. "AMD64" was the original term used to identify the 64-bit versions; it's been partially replaced by "X86_64" but is still around.

If you get no reaction by double-clicking the file, perhaps you do not have the "debi" package loaded. It should be available through Software Center. While Software Center is rather useless until you have an internet connection for it to use, you may be able to have it create a download script that could be copied to a flash drive, taken to a machine that can connect, and used there. Synaptic has this capability; I don't know whether it's available in Software Center though.

Polydorus, your posts have been moved their own thread to keep the original on topic. Please do not hijack threads in the futer.

I got on line today using Ubuntu 12.04 and wvdial. Thanks JimKyle for pointing me in the right direction.

You're quite welcome! Glad to hear you succeeded. Dial-up connections seem to be the forgotten utilities these days, along with floppy disk drives...