[Lancaster] Linux with dialup?

[llug at lodestar.icom43.net]

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Ken Walton ken.walton at carandol.net
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 14:33:16 +0000

> A friend of mine wants to switch his (elderly) laptop and desktop PCs to
> linux, but only has dial-up internet access. Puppy Linux works fine on his
> laptop, detected his modem and connected to the internet perfectly well,
but
> his PCs are both capable of running something better. I installed Linux
Mint
> (built on Ubuntu) on the laptop, thinking that it would save him the
problem
> of having to download and install codecs -- only to find that there are no
> drivers for his built-in modem. The drivers would have to be compiled,
which
> would mean we'd also have to install the software needed for that sort of
> thing, which of course we couldn't do until we had an internet
connection...
> I don't know enough about the inner workings of Linux to do this, and
> frankly, think life is too short to want to spend a lot of time learning
> how. I'd rather find a decent version of Linux which would run on a
machine
> with 512Mb RAM, with modem support out of the box. We'd both rather he
ended
> up with one of the major distros (or at least something closely based on
> one) so that he's better able to get help if he needs it. Anyone know a
good
> solid Linux distro that still supports dial-up networking from the moment
of
> installation?

I would suggest Damn Small Linux, but I couldn't swear as to the modem
support - I'll try and check that. DSL is usually thought of as a
lightweight distro like Puppy, but when it's installed to disk it's Debian
- and it uses Knoppix hardware detection :-) 

Mark W


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