No wvdial in Jaunty

[Bartender]

I just found out about this, and wanted to get something out there for the poor saps still on dial-up.
Jaunty does not include wvdial. I knew us dial-up users were way down at the far end of the bread line, but this is getting downright insulting.

The only things I can think of right now are to:
1) Take your PC someplace with broadband, and download gnome-ppp, which appears to include wvdial.

or:

2) Configure pppconfig properly to make a connection. It's confusing for first-time users so follow the steps very carefully and make sure you have the correct username, password, and phone number. Your DNS is probably "Dynamic" and if you set it to "Static" you'll never get online. If you can set up pppconfig properly, you just open a terminal and type

pon

to get online, and

poff

to get offline.

plog

gives you some info as it tries to connect.

3) If you can get online with pppconfig, download gnome-ppp.

sudo apt-get install gnome-ppp

gnome-ppp will give you a nicer interface (the utility will be found at Applications>Internet>GNOME PPP) it also installs wvdial so you can set up wvdialconf.

Any other ideas to get people started, please pitch in.

[longtom]

You are right - it is insulting. wvdial is the only way I get people going here in the third world with a lot of dial-up modems.
Ubuntu developers are obviously living in the first world and don't care too much.

I was hoping that the involvement of a Mark Shuttleworth might help think of other people but the average first world user - but he doesn't live in the 3rd world, also he might have been raised here. He probably is not involved with the development of any given version either but rather concerned with general policies (like the latest Demian offer).

So here we are, using 8.04 and looking out for distros with the ease of Ubuntu but the features of distros thinking not first world only. I always thought, this is one of the "markets" of Linux (and especially Ubuntu with its African naming and theming) to reach people who can not afford expensive proprietary software and os'.

I would hate to loose those who already have given up on pirating returning to their illegal Nigerian Windows copies because Ubuntu appears to abandon them.

Any tips which other, easy to use system could help and is not as restrictive in their offer of choice as far as networking is concerned.

Any suggestions are very welcome!

[Bartender]

longtom -
have you tried out Jaunty on any of the PC's you work with? It does have lots of little improvements to 8.04 and if we can get you going with dial-up configuration it might be worth a try...once I got Jaunty working with pppconfig, then gnome-ppp, it seemed like dial-up was a bit more responsive than in earlier distros. That's an entirely subjective comment.

I have a bad feeling the powers-that-be are trying to shake loose the dial-up crowd.

Do a thousand people accessing the repository servers on dial-up take up more resources than a thousand people using broadband? That's probly a stupid question.

I double-checked on my PC. After installing the gnome-ppp package (you can check its contents by going to "ubuntu packages" website, entering gnome-ppp, enter, then double-click on the package name to view details) I was able to start up a terminal and begin using the typical commands to configure wvdial. So if you downloaded the gnome-ppp package to a thumbdrive, you could copy the package to a desktop, double-click, and the package installer should do the rest. It sounds like you're busy with numerous PC's, so that might help out. That would only be necessary on Jaunty, of course. I believe previous distros include wvdial.

On the other hand, if you could set up pppconfig, and download then configure gnome-ppp, perhaps there's no need for wvdial. Maybe that's the "logic" that went into tossing it out of the distro. One dial-up tool is enuf for those losers.

If I had broadband and a blog I'd write a step-by-step for pppconfig. pppconfig isn't rocket science, but confusing enuf to the Linux newb. Of course, that would only work for some people doing a very basic set-up. I'm seeing quite a few threads from folks who are trying to configure cell phones as modems. That was rare just a coupla years ago. I don't know anything about that.

[PriceChild]

Have you tried contacting the developers/filing a bug on launchpad?

Not many of them are active here.

[Bartender]

Hi, Price! Thanks for posting.

No, I never even considered filing a bug. Pretty sure wvdial exclusion is intentional.

And I was going to prove it to you by pointing out that earlier versions of gnome-ppp don't include wvdial. But I was wrong. Just looked up hardy and dapper gnome-ppp packages. wvdial is included.

I'm quite sure I set up wvdial several times on several PC's without first downloading gnome-ppp. wvdialconfig was functional on a fresh install of those earlier distros and now it isn't.

So you've got me wondering if wvdial was tossed out of Jaunty intentionally, or if it's broken? Jaunty's been out for a while now and it didn't occur to me that this would have gone unremarked for this length of time.

[GeorgeVita]

EDIT: after reading carefully all other posts my position is fully covered.

Regards,
George

[Bartender]

Well, I filed a bug report - #413273.

[_duncan_]

removed

[longtom]

Can a user achieve dial-up internet connectivity with a supported modem after a default ubuntu install, without having to download anything else? Based on the OP, the answer seems to be yes.

I am not so sure. It wasn't for me. And wouldn't it have been for the extremly friendly help of the user lkramer and all his patience, people I know would not be connected and would probably using a well known OS in pirate mode.

Here is a thread illustrating what I am talking about:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1100310

As we see from this thread - setting up a dial-up modem is not for the faint hearted. Does Ubuntu realise, how many potential users they are throwing away because of this? Maybe it is true and Ubuntu tries to shut out dial-up users on purpose.

It would than be only fair to make this public, so that dial-up users can choose a different distro which will consider their needs.

[_duncan_]

removed