I have used linux for a while but, I am unfamiliar with ubuntu and haven't used dial-up in a long time. I'm trying to get my fathers computer running Ubuntu 5.10 to connect to his dial up isp. After some confusion with synaptic saying the ltmodem driver was part of the linux-restricted-modules package when it doesn't, I found and installed the driver; a precompiled binary as the breezy kernel is compiled with a version of gcc thats not the same as whats available through synaptic. Now when I log in as root I can dial in and surf just fine, but when I log in as a normal user DNS doesn't seem to work. I get an IP and I can ping the other end of the connection and the DNS servers in /etc/resolv.conf just fine but nothing with a host name. This happens with wvdial and whatever the network wizard is in ubuntu (could be a gnome thing I'm not familiar with that either.)

Hi Steve. I don't think I'm going to be much help here, but can confirm that as user DNS works ok on the Ubuntu live cd.Im posting this at the moment on it.

I have 2 machines on a LAN going through a Smoothwall firewall, then through a serial modem to the Internet. I have Kubuntu (the KDE version) amongst other distros, including Gentoo that run on this machine, but just for the sheer hell of it I shut down the Smoothwall, and put the serial modem on one of the machines, then booted up the Ubuntu live cd, and then the fun started, as I don't use Gnome either.

Anyway. I found something called "Network settings", clicked on activate ppp, which brought everything to life, filled in the phone number, user name, and password, then moved to the modem tab, and clicked autodetect, and it found it at ttyS0, which is correct for the serial modem, next went to the DNS tab and put the DNS address in for the ISP, then back to the connections tab, and clicked on activate, which resulted in the modem steaming into action. Opening Firefox I got a website first go. I don't know how to shut down the connection to the ISP, this isn't like Kppp. I could just switch the modem off I suppose.lol.

As for wvdial, I can't even find out how to set that up. According to the man pages I looked at earlier this afternoon, there is supposed to be an /etc/wvdial.conf, and a similar file in the home directory. All that wvdial did when I ran it as user was to say that it couldn't find a modem at /dev/modem, which is true for me as my modem is at ttyS0, but I couldn't find out how to get wvdial to look in other places.
See: man wvdial, and man wvdial.conf

How did you set up the dialup connection? Using the "Network settings" tool? I had no problem setting that up on the Ubuntu live cd as user. The user is predefined as "Ubuntu".

I'm at a bit of a loss. /etc/group shows me as user for the "dialup" group in Kubuntu, and likewise on the Ubuntu live cd, so that should be ok if your running as user, or have sudo'd to root.

Run out of suggestions at the moment.

While I've got the modem on this machine, I'll reboot to my Kubuntu install and see if Kppp is better at setting up connections. I seem to remember that it was.

Nigel. aka farpoint.