Dial-up connection in AntiX

[Member ela]

Greetings AntiX Team and thank you for all your work! I have a question concerning dialup networking which I have to use most of the time. I have been using dialup on Linux computers for a number of years without problems. But in AntiX, both full and base edition, I cannot use it. AntiX does recognize my dialup modem and connects, but there is no traffic, no transfer of data at all. As mentioned, I have been using dialup on Linux for a number of years and believe I know how to set it up and use it. There are no issues with dialup on MX Linux – it works as expected. I also use Debian LXQT (Buster) – no issues, it works normally.

In my understanding, AntiX uses Ceni, Wicd and Connman to manage networks. Debian LXQT uses also Connman, but no Ceni and Wicd (I believe Connman is the only program Debian LXQT uses to manage networks). In order to find out what might cause the dialup problem with AntiX, I decided to install Wicd in Debian LXQT. There were no issues with that setup and dialup. So my hunch is that Ceni and dialup in Linux do not play well together, for whatever reason.

I am aware that there are very few people who use dialup anymore. It is up to you to decide whether you want to take a look at the problem I briefly described, or not. Thank you for your consideration!

[Member Xecure]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Does the Dial-up (Gnome PPP) program launched from the control centre not work for you? If you can describe a bit the steps you follow we may be able to recommend something, like disabling connman, change the resolv.conf symlink, etc.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member ela]

Helpful

Up

0

::

The steps to make a dialup connection in Linux are simple. There are two standard, time-tested programs in Debian-based distros to do it: pppconfig and wvdial (gnome-PPP uses wvdial as backend). (The third program is kppp for KDE; however I don’t use KDE). The configuration to all is almost automated, following the prompts. The default settings are fine. As mentioned, this has been working well with four different dialup ISP providers over the years, and with the current one, starting with Linux Mint, Debian (Cinnamon), then MX Linux, and lastly Debian LXQT. But not with AntiX, neither base nor full version, as briefly described in my previous post.
I will understand that for the AntiX team it would be a hassle to try to replicate the problem, considering the percentage of those who still use dialup – you would have to have a good hardware modem and a dialup Internet provider. You have already done a good job for those who use low specs laptops and have faster Internet.

[Member Xecure]

Helpful

Up

0

::

I understand that it works out of the box on other systems, but we get so little feedback on dial-up during the 19.X cycle we haven’t found if it worked or not.

My guess is that connman (as configured in antiX) is responsible for taking control of the network and not letting dial-up work properly. If you don’t mind testing this, could you test if these changes make dial-up connection work properly?:

Step 1. Disable connman from startup
sudo update-rc.d connman remove

2. Remake the resolv.conf symlink

sudo rm /etc/resolv.conf
sudo ln -s /run/resolvconf/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf

3. Reboot and try dial-up again.

I will not take any more of your time if this doesn’t work for you and we cannot solve this (at least for now).

Thanks for bringing the issue up. We are now aware of the problem and will investigate if we can solve this permanently in the future.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member ela]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Yes, upon making the suggested change, the data transfer does take place, albeit with about a fourth of the usual, normal average throughput (1,000 B/s vs. 4,000 B/s in/out).
Thanks for help and for considering an improvement in the future!

[Author]

Posts