Hi,
sorry for interfereing in this nice thread, but why make life difficult ?
Simply tell people to use some simple shell-based dialer (like wvdial)
that does ALL this stuff. wvdial has been developed exactly for this
novice style of users and has a 'wizard' to help you set up your
connection.
I am not connected to that, but SuSE 6+ comes with it exactly for that
purpose (and installs it by default, as well as pppd and kernel modules.
Which shows again HOW much depends on using a good distro, especially for
newbees).
Schlomo
On Mon, 8 Nov 1999, Omer Zak wrote:
>
> On 8 Nov 1999, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote:
>
> > Omer Zak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >
> > > Suggestion for a project for a youngster who is looking for a niche which
> > > would give him satisfaction, fame and riches:
> > >
> > > How about developing PPP configuration scripts for the other
> > > distributions?
> > >
> > > Then the Technical Support would need only to tell the newbie to download
> > > the script from their Web site and run it and answer its questions (of
> > > course, presented in a nice GUI - which Tk and Python can easily provide).
> >
> > This is nice, but why lock it to a GUI or to Python which may or may
> > not have been installed by the user? And what will Dorit do, being
> > restricted to the command line? And we don't want to forget the poor
> > chap with a 386 that can't run X, or the luser who misconfigured his
> > or bought unsupported hardware.
>
> You are right.
> The basic configuration script's GUI varieties should be similar to the
> Linux kernel configuration scripts - a version with X-Window GUI, a
> version with CURSES based GUI, a version which asks you yes/no questions
> and proceeds accordingly (this one would be helpful for Dorit and for
> blind persons).
>
> > How about a simpler solution? What is needed is a set of ppp options
> > files and chat scripts, and we can assume that the user can edit a
> > file somehow. Then it is a matter of writing and testing a set of
> >
> > /etc/ppp/peers/netvision
> > /etc/ppp/peers/actcom
> > ..
> > /etc/ppp/chat/netvision
> > /etc/ppp/chat/actcom
> > ..
> >
> > and spelling out the permissions (well, assuming ppp is installed and
> > compiled into the kernel, /dev/modem has to be there, etc, this has
> > also be mentioned).
>
> [... rest of technobabble was snipped ...]
>
> The proposed solution is more complicated than what I intended it to be.
> The script should check whether ppp is installed, build /dev/modem as
> necessary, auto-detect the modem, install all needed /etc/ppp/peers/* and
> /etc/ppp/chat/* files, etc.
>
> > anyone who is not a total idiot can fill in the <NUMBERG> <YOURUSER>,
> > and <YOURPASSWD> in the chat script, and start pppd as
>
> The script should prompt the user for those details and fill in the chat
> scripts. Users who contact the ISP Technical Support for a fee - do so
> because they don't master vi and don't bother to RTFM.
>
> > Admittedly, *maybe* some modems need a different set of options
> > (are there such that can't deal with crtscts?), but I expect that
> > there will be very few basic option sets, enumerable.
>
> Have the installation script take care of all those pesky details. Is it
> possible to test the modem and automatically determine whether it supports
> crtscts etc.?
>
> > Again, if the user doesn't know how to install PPP or how to compile
> > the kernel, we can assume that someone has done it for him. And I
> > believe we can expect the ability to edit a text file and to chmod
> > according to instructions.
>
> <sarcasm>
> Yeah, and the user can also be expected to be fluent in English.
> </sarcasm>
> --- Omer
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