[Gllug] BT DSL and Alcatel USB

[Richard Cohen]

(for reference, I'm vmlinuz.org, not vmlinuz.com)

On Wed, 25 Jul 2001, George wrote:

> Hi Richard,
>
> I read your post on the mailing list and thought I'd take you up on the
> offer of talking me through the BT ADSL ALCATEL - Linux - setup.If you could
> just write down a few steps , and/or some common mistakes to avoid, and how
> to fix minor problems, I would be most grateful.

I'm happy to help, but I'm better at solving problems that giving general
guides.  Try to get it working, using the instructions at the Benoit site,
and the FAQ in the package, and if you have problems, get in touch with me.

> Also are there any teeching problems with bt adsl and are there any teething
> problems with the DSL/Alcatel support for linux ?

Yes :-)

The setup I have, using the Benoit drivers, is pretty stable.  I seem to be
getting a couple of weeks uptime before the line drops, and I've only had to
actually unplug the modem once in nearly a couple of months of using it.
The machine has been up constantly since I stopped using the Alcatel drivers
(and was going down every few hours before I switched), and the speed is
decent.

I wouldn't say, at this point, that it's stable enough to use for any
serious or even semi-serious server tasks.  I have a couple of servers
running on my gateway box, as a staging service, rather than a live service,
and I wouldn't want to rely on the connection to actually provide a live
service.  That could, of course, be simply paranoia :-)

One important thing about the Linux stuff in particular is that no-one
supports it, even if you are using the Alcatel driver.  If you call your ISP
and tell them you have a problem with your Linux setup, they would be quite
justified (from a T&C point of view, not a customer service one) in putting
the phone down on you.  Once you start using Linux, you - potentially - lose
almost all the support from your ISP.  Personally, that doesn't bother me -
I haven't had to contact an ISP for support for years - but if it bothers
you...?

> Thanks in advance
>
> George

Cheers
Richard



-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at linux.co.uk
http://list.ftech.net/mailman/listinfo/gllug