[STICKY] Getting dial up to work on Zorin 9

In a couple of months, I'll probably be switching back to dial-up internet due to rising cable costs. Having fallen in love with linux, I've been trying to find out how to make dial up work with a Linux distro, since I only use Windows now for gaming on another tower. I tried other distros that had built in support for dial up like puppy linux, while I enjoyed the simple graphics and appreciate how much functionality is built into that distro and it's variants, I still wanted to make my main OS Zorin. After months of poking around I finally discovered how to resolve the dial up issue!

First get an external USB modem compatible with Linux-in my case it's a USRobotics USR5637

Then get gnome PPP, it's in the software center-or you can find it on the Think Penguin support page with the files it needs here: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguin-56k-dial-modem-support-gnu-linux

Plug your modem in and go into terminal, type:

sudo adduser (your username) dialout

After that reboot your computer, go to gnome ppp, go to the setup menu and hit the 'detect' button. Once it finds your modem, go back to the start screen and enter your username, password, connection number etc and go from there! Hope this helps!

Hi, I do wish Zorin would take this on-board as other lightweight distros tend to have PPPoE present in the iso - as you cannot download it if you need dial-up!

Hello,
I know a lady in a very rural area that only has landline telephone and she has very limited resources.

I would like to give her a used Dell laptop with Zorin installed on it.

I have been using Linux for quite some time, but I still am not proficient with terminal or command line stuff.
Should I attempt to use the onboard Dell phone modem or just go with a usb dial up modem ?
I would really appreciate any help and Suggestions...

Is this covered in the downloadable manual ?

Does the the above Post advice still accurate, it has been there for a few years.

Thanks, Bill

bcnaz wrote::D

Hello,
I know a lady in a very rural area that only has landline telephone and she has very limited resources.

I would like to give her a used Dell laptop with Zorin installed on it.

I have been using Linux for quite some time, but I still am not proficient with terminal or command line stuff.
Should I attempt to use the onboard Dell phone modem or just go with a usb dial up modem ?
I would really appreciate any help and Suggestions...

Is this covered in the downloadable manual ?

Does the the above Post advice still accurate, it has been there for a few years.

Thanks, Bill

If the onboard modem works, then it would be preferrable to the USB dial up modem. The USB port will create a Bottleneck which everything must pass through, slowing things down. The onboard modem would probably be faster. And with dial up, you'll need all the speed you can get

Hi there, this article might help:

https://www.debianadmin.com/setting-up- ... buntu.html - but be warned that the interface given there is on earlier usable Gnome 2, not the fanciful Gnome 3 shell.

Here is another link that might prove useful: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/NetworkManager

Back later - ask ubuntu is preventing me from accessinig a page because I have too much material to read and is threatening to permanently block me!

OK update, what you need to do is install gnome-ppp:



Once gnome-ppp is installed you can start it from within the terminal - gnome-ppp and the GNOME PPP window appears, select the setup button. and teh Seup window appears as in screenshot.

You mentioned that you intend giving her an old Dell laptop - what is the RAM on it and does the processor support PAE (Processor Application Extension) - if so Zorin might be too heavy, even Lite - I would recommend MXLinux 19 or AntiX 19 as an alternative - AntiX comes with PPP as part of the system. I've had AntiX 10 and MX Linux 19 32-bit running on an old D600 Latitude with only 512 Mb RAM but processor was running 100% on occasions and it was not PAE processor. Most distributions these days come with PAE kernels.

MXLinux19:



AntiX 19:



Ironically, starting MXLinux 19 in Virtual Box failed as it needed a PAE kernel enabled which I forgot about. What I will never understand is how the D600 booted and installe MXLinux 19 despite not having PAE processor. Whilst the panel is on the left you change it's position to the bottom and then move the icons in reverse order so that the menu button (wigwam) icon is on the left and the power button (green circle) over on the right. Then when installing you get the option to preserve what you have changed in live mode - it's a brilliant OS from this point of view.