Dial-up connections with Linux

Despite the increasing popularity of broadband Internet access and cable company's ventures into the Internet business and their offering of connections, the vast majority of people in the world, at the time of this writing, connect to the Internet via telephone dial-up through the use of a standard modem, usually at speeds ranging from 14.4 to 56 kilobits per second (kbps). The purpose of this lesson, therefore, is to discuss the way to get a dial-up connection running under Linux.
There are modems and then there are "winmodems"

Once upon a time, there were modems (which still exist) where the ability to use it to connect to computer networks, like the Internet, was based on the configuration of the hardware. Nevertheless, companies like Motorola, Rockwell and others developed modems where the configuration of the device was made possible through software more than the embedded programming on the hardware. This software was exclusively compatible with, yes, you guessed it, Microsoft Windows. They became known as "winmodems". Until recently it was impossible to get one of these little jewels in the MS crown running under Linux. If you happen to have one, you could check out Linmodems.org for more information about installing drivers for these to run under Linux. Motorola recently released a set of drivers for their "winmodems".

The best and easiest way, however, of maintaining a dial-up connection is using an external modem or an internal modem where the hardware primarily is designed to handle the connection. Before I had an ADSL connection, I used an external Dynalink 56 kbps modem. The set-up of this modem under SuSE Linux, Red Hat, Mandrake and Slackware was trivial. Before that I used a 38.8 kbps internal modem and a 28.8 kbps one before that, upgrading as the higher speeds became available and their decreasing prices warranted the change.
External Modems

External modems are called that precisely because you have a little box that sits outside your computer. These connect either via a parallel port or a serial port. A parallel port is one that is normally used to connect a printer. A serial port is similar in appearance to the one that is used to connect your mouse. For example, on my workstation, where I am writing this lesson, there are two serial ports, known as "com1" and "com2". As you can remember from our lessons on other subjects such as hard drives and floppy drives, Linux always knows these devices by other names, files that reside within the /dev/ directory. In our case, Linux knows com1 and com2 as /dev/ttyS0 and /dev/ttyS1 respectively (in the computer world, we usually start counting at zero). If you have a serial mouse, this is usually occupying com1 and therefore /dev/ttyS0. If you then get an external modem and you want to use it, you would hook it up to the second serial port, com2, which, as I mentioned, Linux knows as /dev/ttyS1. The trick (really not a trick because there is no difficulty involved) is to alter your Linux configuration so that it knows that you've got an external modem on /dev/ttyS1 so it can communicate with it.

Under SuSE Linux for example, this is quite easy. As 'root' you would fire up their configuration tool called YAST and choose the option 'System Administration' and then the option 'Integrate Hardware into System'. At this point you're asked to choose the hardware you want to configure and obviously you would choose 'Modem configuration' which is the second option. You'll see the various "com" ports available and even, with the newer version of SuSE, USB modem support. If you have a serial mouse, be sure to choose com2 or /dev/ttyS1. You should have your modem set up after you've done this.

If you've installed Red Hat Linux, then you should have no problem setting it up with one of their utilities known as modemtool. If you've installed Mandrake, their tool HardDrake should do the trick. LinuxConf is also an all-purpose tool that includes modem configuration. I have had (and heard of) mixed results with this tool.

Now that you've got a modem connected, we'll talk about configuring your connection with your ISP in the next part of the lesson.