[SGVLUG] last nite's meeting - please help

[David Lawyer]

> On Tue, May 16, 2006 at 02:19:13PM -0700, David Lawyer wrote:
> > > 
> > I tried it again, and same problem as before.  It seems to only work
> > for an ethernet connection to the Internet and not for an analog modem
> > connection (there's no software on the floppies for dialout).  So
> > Debian's documentation about this is misleading.   So I filed a bug
> > report, which (per Debian) has been posted on one of their mailing
> > lists.
> 
On Tue, May 16, 2006 at 03:11:09PM -0700, Dustin Laurence wrote:
> First: if you're on a modem you are *not* "on the network" in most
> senses of the word. :-)  Just like you're not "on the telephone" just
> because you are relaying smoke signals with someone who is on the phone.

With a modem connection, one is on the network.  Here's the status of
my ppp connection via a modem (using the ifconfig command):

ppp0      Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol  
          inet addr:66.81.17.182  P-t-P:69.19.219.6  Mask:255.255.255.255
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:437 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:426 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:3 
          RX bytes:182445 (178.1 KiB)  TX bytes:109030 (106.4 KiB)

Note that I've got an IP address assigned and people have even
attempted to use me as a mail relay according to my logs.  I can type
ping ... on the command line and it works.  If I type "lynx
some-file.html" I can follow the links in the file which connect me to
various servers around the world.  So is this different than an
ethernet connection?  It could be but I don't think there is much
difference except for speed.

> 
> If it were me, I'd say the documentation is correct and your definition
> of "on the network" is in error.

This is what Debian says, and it doesn't seem to work for PPP
because the floppies don't provide the software to dialout to an ISP.

   This sort of network installation process requires either an analogue
   PPP dialup connection to your Internet provider, or Internet access via
   Ethernet (possibly using a PCMCIA card in your laptop). Unfortunately,
   it does not support internal ISDN cards.

> > I would hope that with a modem connection, only a minimal
> > command-line-interface system would be installed, so that the user
> > could get additional packages desired via apt-get.
> 
> I'm not sure this is worth supporting.  The time required would be
> immense,

Well, I'm upgrading my software periodically over a 28.8 modem.
You're right that it takes a lot of time (to upgrade) but one can do it
overnight while one is asleep.

> and I wouldn't be surprised if the probability of corrupted
> files is too great to expect a successful install.

They use pretty long checksums so there's no corruption.  Or more
precisely, any corruption is automatically detected and dealt with.
The checksums are used by PPP and TCP packets (overkill) and the
Debian packages.  The modem also uses error correction.  Thus there's
4 different systems preventing corruption.  There's also a checksum
in the IP packet header which only checks the IP packet header.

> Why not just surf to one of the many .iso sites and order the CDs for
> $2?  The transmission rate may even be as good (will be, if you order
> enough CDs).

I think you'll pay over $2 just for shipping and handling.  Because
some people may not have a working CD ROM.  Mine isn't working for 2
reasons, one of which is MB damage to my IDE interface.  For
upgrading, CDs have a lot of disadvantages.  They will not be as
up-to-date as what one gets from the Internet.  I understand that the
Debian archive is over 100 GB while a CD holds less than 1 GB.  But
Debian supports a lot of different architectures.  For an old PC, one
may need an old package to support old hardware, like my 12-year-old
video card that has a hardware bug that was worked-around via old
software but not by newer software that is supposed to support the
card (but doesn't).  It's still in the Debain "oldstable" distribution
but would this be on CD?

Personally, I don't need to do an install but am doing this so as to
possibly help enable those in the world who have old computers to be
able to install without a CD.  I only have done one install in 1997
and am still using that, after upgrading numerous times over a modem
connection.  But I've still got a few system files around dated 1996
but they are probably not being used, like /etc/gateways,
/etc/fdprm.obsolete, and /etc/ppp/chatscript.  So there are only a few
remnants left of my original install.

			David Lawyer