October 05, 2002
Not today sonny
After months in the wilderness I finally have decent connectivity again. Great. Especially as near the top of my to do list is to figure out how to install wxPython and PythonCard under Debian GNU/Linux and then document it on the project Wiki.
Now ppp dialup is a little tricker under Linux than Windows (one of the myriad of reasons why Linux still isn't ready for the mainstream) and you need a little more information than just a phone number and your username and password.
Specifically (to the best of my knowledge) you need to tell your machine how to resolve domain names. This is done using a nameserver which is supplied by your ISP. Under Windows this all happens automatically and you don't need to be any the wiser.
Linux, being a little bit more hardcore requires you to fiddle about with a couple of configuration files. For those who thirst for knowledge, I'm using WvDial possibly the simplest way of getting a Linux box to connect to a dial up ISP. With this you need to fiddle with two files; you need to specify the phone number, your username and your password in /etc/wvdial.conf and you need to put DNS information in /etc/resolv.conf. The first is easy, the second can be a little tricky without the right information.
Sadly, my ISP doesn't want me to know this much information, so I'm stuck with Windows for now.
Update
19:03 - A little light lift music later and the technical support desk at Vulture Capitalist came through with the goods. If you want to connect to their service try the following in your /etc/resolv.conf file;
domain vcisp.net
nameserver 212.159.11.155
nameserver 212.159.13.155
Posted by Andy Todd at October 05, 2002 06:41 PM