Half a year ago I've switched from ADSL to cable Internet connection ( the telephone company proclaimed that it was still impossible to provide ADSL to our new neighborhood). The Internet provider has decided to go for some "mixed" connection scheme - not only DHCP, but DHCP and then VPN, login and such. To my big surprise, there were BIG problems with Linux to connect such a way. * As the connection is DHCP based, DHCPed interface takes ( and rightfully) the default route, and then there are two problems : - PPPD refuses to replace the default route and has to be forced - In case the default route via PPP is forced, the network is dead, as the route to PPTP server goes via the PPP device. So one has to define manually some dedicated route to PPTP server ( and its IP address changed several times in my case, but its name remained the same, go do some tricks defining such a route), and then force the default route to go via PPP device. Windows client does all that automatically. I don't imagine telling some Windows literate Linux newbie over the phone how to configure such connection in Linux. I can easily imagine telling somebody Windows-literate how to configure such connection in Windows. It has taken me about a couple of minutes to reconfigure my connection from ADSL one to "mixed cable" one in Windows - DHCP instead of static here, PPTP server name, username and password there. Finished.
* There is NO WAY to define such 'PPTP over DHCP' connection in DrakConnect. It's either PPTP-ADSL ( i.e PPTP to hardcodedly 10.0.0.138, instead of JUST ASKING the server name/IP), or standard DHCP cable. NO WAY IN HELL to define some VPN connection graphically. Why? For me, there is no problem to define such connection manually - after I discovered the routing problem described above. It has taken several days till I succeeded to connect - and I've played a lot in the past with routing and such, both in Linux and in Windows ( oh, this "route" command in NT 4...). Compare a couple of minutes to several days. Compare filling several fields in dialog window ( the same dialog window for ANY VPN connection, ADSL, cable, some other, don't know what) to editing /etc/ppp/options and /etc/ppp/ip-up.local ( for the routing problem). Linux conquering the desktop? Mandrake REALLY easy to use? NO and ONCE MORE NO until ALL SUCH LITTLE PROBLEMS ARE WORKED OUT. -- Regards, Alex Chudnovsky e-mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ : 35559910
