Puppy 5.5 can't connect via dial-up

[kevhaw]

I'll post my results with the external modem after I get my hands on one.

I hope it works out well for you, as it has for me on the four different computers I've tried it on. Another plus is that it has worked for me on a few other Linux distros, as well (Mint, Lubuntu, Xubuntu) - distros that have virtually no onboard modem driver support at all (that I could reasonably find). Fortunately, though, those distros did have available the needed dialup tools - wvdial and gnomePPP... which took a little work (setting permissions, mainly) to sort it all out - but ended up working great with the USB modem.

And anyways, from what I've gathered - if your onboard modem's chipset is a Conexant, the Puppy driver is based on the free Linuxant driver - which is purposely crippled to a lower transfer rate by Linuxant. If you buy the un-crippled version - for about 20$ US, IIRC (i.e. about the cost of a USB modem) - you then still have to jump through the hoops to attempt to get the driver installed and functioning properly on your system.

Instead, I just went ahead and bought the little Trendnet USB modem - and haven't looked back.

Good luck - keep us posted.

Bob

Thanks Bob for recommending the Trendnet usb modem. Once I was able to figure out how to erase the stored info the Dell's own modem, it worked GREAT!
Now I just need to do research and learn about wary puppy So far I have just figured out how to get the cd player to work.
I didn't bother reinstalling XP as I have two newer laptops with Windows 7 installed. I just wanted to find something that the old Dell Inspiron could be used for, other than recycling.
I am also curious about Linux in general and it will be fun to do research and see what I can learn. Looks like a steep learning curve.
One thing I am curious about... is it possible to install a brouser on wary puppy and surf the net like windows, or do you need to use the website mirror grabber app... the one where you type in the url of the webpage that you want.
Again, thanks for the great advice guys, and thanks to Bob for recommending specifically the Trendnet gizmo!
Kevin

[Moat]

... it worked GREAT!

Yay! Glad you got things up and connected!

I am also curious about Linux in general and it will be fun to do research and see what I can learn. Looks like a steep learning curve.

Me too (curious). It does seem a bit steep, but IMO that's part of the fun - always something new to learn/do. Like break stuff. I think Puppy is as good a place to jump into Linux as any, being it's overall a little less complex as some of the bigger distros, auto logs us in as "root" (administrator) so we're not constantly getting nagged with a password prompt as we go about our business of breaking things ( ), and it's easy to backup the system if we irreversibly screw things up (by backing up savefiles using the Pupsave Hot Backup utility). A fun platform to tweak, customize and learn!

One thing I am curious about... is it possible to install a brouser on wary puppy and surf the net like windows...

I believe your Wary Puppy should already have a web browser installed... likely Seamonkey... under the "Internet" menu category?

Bob

[kevhaw]

... it worked GREAT!

Yay! Glad you got things up and connected!

I am also curious about Linux in general and it will be fun to do research and see what I can learn. Looks like a steep learning curve.

Me too (curious). It does seem a bit steep, but IMO that's part of the fun - always something new to learn/do. Like break stuff. I think Puppy is as good a place to jump into Linux as any, being it's overall a little less complex as some of the bigger distros, auto logs us in as "root" (administrator) so we're not constantly getting nagged with a password prompt as we go about our business of breaking things ( ), and it's easy to backup the system if we irreversibly screw things up (by backing up savefiles using the Pupsave Hot Backup utility). A fun platform to tweak, customize and learn!

One thing I am curious about... is it possible to install a brouser on wary puppy and surf the net like windows...

I believe your Wary Puppy should already have a web browser installed... likely Seamonkey... under the "Internet" menu category?

Bob

Thanks again Bob. For sure the seamonkey browser did work. It seems to be affiliated with google search. Of course dial-up is extremely slow but it's fun to be free of the XP warnings and be able to do some basic stuff with my old Dell.
Kevin