Sad PenguinMonday, November 08, 2004
Modem and browser set-up
Getting online is a major priority, if only because there are probably things I'll need to download onto this machine to get some of the other problems sorted out.
First question: can I run Mozilla without KDE or Gnome? If not, what should I use instead? (It would be quite handy just to get Lynx working, so that I could at least make some contact with the outside world!).
Attempts to install Mozilla using RPM have resulted in long lists of dependencies, some of which I've found on my disks, some of which I haven't. This may be related to the first question, I suppose.
There's no internal modem on the PC, so I've connected a US Robotics 56K Faxmodem to the serial port. Followed the instructions in a couple of weighty Linux guides I got from the library and set up a /dev/modem link which points to /dev/cua0, the serial port in question. Again, as suggestion, I tried using $ echo "ATDTnnnnnn" >/dev/modem" to test the connection, and got no response - and no change in the lights displayed on the modem. So it appears that the OS is not communicating with the modem at the moment.
Again, following instructions on setting up a PPP link, found that it doesn't appear to have the necessary wherewithal installed (sorry to be a bit vague here - am working from memory!). The book suggested checking through dmesg to see if it refers to having TCP/IP set up, and then if it didn't I think you were supposed to use pppd to do this. But pppd isn't installed and I can't find it on the disks.
Update: Will try reading through these HOWTOs:
* PPP-HOWTO
* ISP Connectivity mini-HOWTO
First question: can I run Mozilla without KDE or Gnome? If not, what should I use instead? (It would be quite handy just to get Lynx working, so that I could at least make some contact with the outside world!).
Attempts to install Mozilla using RPM have resulted in long lists of dependencies, some of which I've found on my disks, some of which I haven't. This may be related to the first question, I suppose.
There's no internal modem on the PC, so I've connected a US Robotics 56K Faxmodem to the serial port. Followed the instructions in a couple of weighty Linux guides I got from the library and set up a /dev/modem link which points to /dev/cua0, the serial port in question. Again, as suggestion, I tried using $ echo "ATDTnnnnnn" >/dev/modem" to test the connection, and got no response - and no change in the lights displayed on the modem. So it appears that the OS is not communicating with the modem at the moment.
Again, following instructions on setting up a PPP link, found that it doesn't appear to have the necessary wherewithal installed (sorry to be a bit vague here - am working from memory!). The book suggested checking through dmesg to see if it refers to having TCP/IP set up, and then if it didn't I think you were supposed to use pppd to do this. But pppd isn't installed and I can't find it on the disks.
Update: Will try reading through these HOWTOs:
* PPP-HOWTO
* ISP Connectivity mini-HOWTO
