On Sat, 16 Aug 2008, Rocky Rock wrote:
Then i wanted to reconnect, so i typed:
$sudo modprobe -r slamr
but i got this message:
$FATAL: Module slamr is in use.
That's because kernel modules provide support for various things, in this case
your modem. Once support is in-kernel, there is usually no reason to remove it
again unless it conflicts with some other device you are wanting to use. You
can't remove a module that is currently being used, and this is what modprobe
is telling you.
I tried then to type:
$sudo modprobe slamr
This attempts to put back something not removed above, so modprobe quietly
exists, since the condition you're asking for already exists without doing
anything.
and i got no message, then when i tried to reconnect i get the same old message that the modem doesn't respond or something.
Likely the modem was never hung up again. I believe wvdial only dials - pppd
is the actual thing using the modem, so you must ask it to terminate for the
connection to be closed. Try one of these commands with the approprite root
powers:
pkill -SIGTERM pppd
or
killall -SIGTERM pppd
or
kill -SIGTERM 'pidof pppd'
Note many shells try to build in their own 'kill', which is working different
then the system binary 'kill' (usually removing the "SIG" part, so -SIGTERM
becomes -TERM), so if you use the third command and it complains about wrong
signals, then do one of these instead:
\kill -SIGTERM 'pidof pppd'
or
/bin/kill -SIGTERM 'pidof pppd'
If you can hear your modem (while it dials) from where you sit, you can
probably hear it click closed at that point. See that the link is gone by
looking for an interface with a name like "ppp0":
ip link show
or
ifconfig
So i had to reboot again to reconnect again!
Remember, rebooting is for Windows ;)
The main times Linux needs a reboot is after a kernel/glibc upgrade... or if
you forget the command to down a ppp link.
If the connection is slow, there might well be other things trying to use the
connection. If you leave Firefox running, by default it tries to download URL
blacklists for phishing sites, which is definately noticable under your
typical dial-up speeds. I had to turn that off on mine because of this. There
could be other stuff running, too. You'll have to look through your process
list and see what is running that you don't want to be, and disable or stop
it.
process list:
ps aux
or
pstree -a
network usage w/user using the connection (needs root to see all):
ss -atup
or
netstat -ap
You might want to download a Linux User's Guide and/or a Linux Admin's Guide
to help you get more out of using Linux. There's alot of things for new users
to learn.
