Actually, even in linux, sometimes if you do lose your connection rebooting does restart it. So I would try rebooting before I call them, then you never have to argue that you don't have to reboot because you are running linux. I haven't had charter refuse to talk to me because i'm running linux, but i have gotten some really ignorant so-called tech people. sometimes you have to keep calling until you get somebody that knows something. But I should point out that other than some temporary down times, which I just waited through, I've only had one call-in-and-report-a-problem hassle in over two years. and that problem was apparently because Madison, wisconsin's servers were being reorganized and the server I was using suddenly wouldn't let me send emails and I had to end up switching my smtp in exim. Of course, tech support didn't tell me what to change, so you do fare better if you know enough about your system to translate what they tell you is wrong to linuxese. I've heard some reports from linux users on cable of some ports being intentionally blocked to prevent activity, but this hasn't so far happened to me. -- Cheryl