dial-up comps group?

[Michael Scherer]

Le jeudi 07 mars 2013 à 21:17 -0800, Kenneth Marcy a écrit :
> On 3/7/2013 8:50 PM, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
> 
> > I see all the various desktop envs install the 'dial-up' group, which
> > has: 
> > 
> >       <packagereq type="mandatory">ppp</packagereq>
> >       <packagereq type="default">isdn4k-utils</packagereq>
> >       <packagereq type="default">linux-atm</packagereq>
> >       <packagereq type="default">lrzsz</packagereq>
> >       <packagereq type="default">minicom</packagereq>
> >       <packagereq type="default">ModemManager</packagereq>
> >       <packagereq type="default">rp-pppoe</packagereq>
> >       <packagereq type="default">wvdial</packagereq>
> >       <packagereq type="optional">efax</packagereq>
> >       <packagereq type="optional">pptp</packagereq>
> >       <packagereq type="optional">statserial</packagereq>
> > 
> > I can see people perhaps using ModemManager (when they have some kind
> > of mobile broadband or the like), but do we need to install the rest of
> > that stuff on every desktop anymore? 
> > 
> > kevin
> > 
> > 
> In a word, yes.  
> The digital divide between urban and rural still exists, which means
> that broadband availability is significantly less in rural areas,
> leaving dial-up the only financially feasible alternative for many
> households.  
> This situation is exacerbated in physically large countries that lack
> strong national policy for high speed, high capacity Internet
> availability, so continued installation of what might be considered
> geriatric, if not actually primitive, technology continues to be
> necessary.

What has efax or minicom anything to do with internet access ? 

And what is the state of the support of NetworkManager for 56k modem or
similar technology, I took a look at the source code, but nothing
conclusive ( ie, it detect that a modem is just a plain modem, and
that's all, no specific support on ModemManager side ).

If someone could just list the technology, how people use them, this
could for sure help to prune down that list.

For example, rp-pppoe is just broadband and there is some kind of
support in NetworkManager, so not sure this is still needed as a
separate package.

I am pretty sure that linux-atm is likely unused by residential users in
2013. ( ie, it kinda need some specific hardware to be used, my internet
access use it but that's the modem job to do it, I just interface it
with plain ethernet ). I may be wrong on that part however.

Lrzsz is a file tranfert protocol software, hardly needed for internet
access.

So I would keep wvdial,  isdn4k-utils ( even if that's becoming IMHO
more and more unused ), maybe pppoe depending on the nm support.

-- 
Michael Scherer