dial-up comps group?

[Dan Williams]

On Fri, 2013-03-08 at 11:30 +0100, Michael Scherer wrote:
> 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 ).

NetworkManager/ModemManager do not yet support plain 56k modems, though
patches would be most welcome for simple cases.  I'd be happy to support
this if we could, and I even have some 56k modems I can test basic stuff
up to a dialtone with.  I can provide more direction if anyone is
interested.

> 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.

PPPoE is mainly used in three cases:

1) externel ADSL<->ethernet bridge; your machine hooks up via Ethernet
but still needs to authenticate and bring up the tunnel using PPPoE.
NetworkManager supports this.

2) WiFi PPPoE: we've heard of some shared WiFi installations (in Africa
I believe) where subscribers must use PPPoE over the WiFi link to access
the internet, and then are charged while the PPPoE session is active.
NetworkManager does not yet support this.

3) ATM-based ADSL with PPPoE: used with USB ADSL modems that provide an
ATM interface to the system, like the 'ueagle' devices.  A "nas"
interface is created on the ATM device and then PPPoE is run over the
nas interface.  Similar to case #1, but in case #1 the external modems
handles the "nas" stuff internally.  NetworkManager supports this and
does not require linux-atm/br2684ctl to do so.

We're likely going to add ISDN support for a near-future release of
NetworkManager too; I'm not yet sure whether we need isdn4kutils for
that or not.

> 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.

Yeah, you're wrong :)  It's not used much in the US anymore, as the ISPs
give everyone the external ADSL<->ethernet bridges.  But in Europe it's
somewhat more popular.

> 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.

Certainly PPPoE.

Dan