Dear Jacques,
This is basically a THANK YOU message, since I have
reached the stage where the "sudo wvdial" command
returned an OK, modem initialised. But it also
reported that the configuration did not specify a
valid phone number, login name, or password. I guess
these and subsequent problems will have to be solved
through further reading, or help from appropriate
Linux and Ubuntu forums, rather than LinModem.
I think it is appropriate for me to express my thanks
to Marvin and you right away, because I never expected
to get this far so soon, considering how much of a
novice I am! I do appreciate the dedication and
sincerity with which people like you volunteer to help
newcomers to Linux. I hope I am not wasting your time
if I make some remarks about my relationship with
computing:
I am really an old-fashioned mechanical engineer, not
at all computer-friendly. I'm over sixty now, and was
quite comfortable with slide rules and manual
drawings. My first exposure to computers, about
twentyfive years back, was Fortran programming using
punched cards on a main-frame IBM, when I went back
for a post-graduate degree. I never followed that up,
and it is less than ten years since I acquired a PC
rather reluctantly and have been using it more like
typewriter (with MS-Word97 running on Windows98), plus
a little bit of e-mail and internet through dial-up.
I am aware of the issues relating to Microsoft, and
have been reading about Linux for a few years now, but
it never seemed like a practical option for the layman
who is effectively trapped in Windows. I even prefer
to have a minimum dependence on computers, since I
feel that all these modern technologies tend to be
misused. In my experience, the use of computers seems
to promote a lot of carelessness and the inability to
think about basic principles -- but let me not stray
too much from the topic.
About a year back I got a new laptop (Dell Inspiron
1520, with WinXP preloaded), and due to limited time
and ability I have been experimenting with it off and
on. After many misadventures I succeeded in
discovering the hidden Dell partitions, shrinking the
C: drive with GParted, recovering a 'lost' partition I
had deleted by a wrong Windows command, and finally
installed Ubuntu 8.04.1 for dual booting. Once I can
get the Internet connection OK I will be able to
retire my rickety old PC which 'hangs' almost daily
now!
My inexperience with computing will probably fill a
joke book. For instance my 'success' in getting as far
as wvdial was achieved through a series of blunders
and repeated trials. Besides not knowing how to send a
plain text e-mail, I could not at first distinguish
between the devc6-deb download page (html) and the
download package (deb) -- I tried to 'unpack' the html
file! In general it is impossible (for me) to remember
or record the sequence of events when something goes
wrong, due to the succession of confusing messages and
options which pop up.
Till very recently I never knew what a pen-drive was,
and remained unaware that my PC actually had USB
ports. When I got a CD drive added a few years back, I
kept getting the 'drive not reading' error, until I
was told that the discs have to be 'played upside
down' unlike a gramophone record. And so on.
I am however committed to switching over to Linux
entirely, but will have to proceed at my own slow
pace. It is reassuring to know that there is a very
helpful community out there. But the difficulties with
Linux can be very frustrating even for those who are
much more computer-savvy than I am, for instance as
seen in the Ubuntu Forums thread 885685 "linmodem
help, please", Aug 2008 (post#5 by A2JC4life).
Anyway, I am mentioning some immediate problems I have
faced:
1.) I have entered the ISP dialing phone number
(without spaces), my login name, and password in
/etc/wvdial.conf, but they are somehow not being
recognised. I have read about options like ppp and
minicon, but haven't tried anything else yet.
2.) In the network settings > connections tab, I
ticked the 'wired connection' option, address
indicated as 'dhcp' and properties: automatic
configuration. Other items like IP address, subnet
mask, gateway address were left blank. In the other
tabs (general, DNS, hosting) I did not know what to
do. I have dial-up account with dynamic IP (so no
fixed DNS?). Host alias properties shows IP address
"127.0.1.1" for thomas-laptop. I don't understand any
of this.
3.) The volume control icon on the taskbar has a red
mark, from which the error message reads "... did not
find any elements or devices to control. This means
that you don't have the right GStreamer plugins
installed, or ... no sound card configured ..."
If there are simple remedies for any of these, please
let me know.
Thank you for your patience, and the
encouragement/advvice in your e-mail of 7 Jan, =Thomas
Tharu=
