[H-GEN] Linux Problems

[Mark Suter]

Frank,

> I have been encountering several probleme over the past few months that
> have tended to force me away from Linux. The issues that cause me drama
> include dropped connections and non-existent connections on the net.

I dial the same UQ modem banks (33008256) and use the following
initialization string on my Banksia WaveSP56.

    AT&F%E2-K0-Q0S2=255S7=60S10=100S95=45

This has been *very* reliable and I've had more problems with
power and Telstra (no dialtone - even with a Telstra handset)
than with the modem.

> For example I dial in and try to connect to uq but the connection is not
> established and a message in my ppp log file indicates that the request
> by the modem for configuration was never returned. In addition, I drop a
> lot of connections after 30 mins, 1 hour or some such. I noticed a lot
> of these problem when I went to a Web-Excel 56 Kb modem which behaves
> impecably under Windows 9X. If I use Linux for a month my phone bill is
> $10 more than if I use Windows for a month.

If you're not using PAP, do so.  If you are, try increasing the
pap-timeout.  Windows may be more tolerant of dirty lines are the
beginning of the call whereas the default pppd setup is generally
quicker to give up.

> Further, I am getting absolutely woeful performance using Netscape in
> Linux over Netscape in Win. The settings for both are the same.

No comment - I primarily use Lynx/Links/w3m and any graphical
browser is too slow ;)

That said, I have found that if you have enough memory, Mozilla
is faster at rendering complex pages than either Netscape or
Internet Explorer.

> I am using Red Hat 6.2 ... is anyone else observing the same behaviour.

To help you easily understand the following log extract,
understand that my host is permanently connected.

    suter at zwitterion:/var/log$ sudo zcat messages.?.gz | sudo cat messages messages.0 - | grep -F 'Connect time'
    Jul  6 10:20:10 zwitterion pppd[88]: Connect time 7068.6 minutes.
    Jul  8 09:59:32 zwitterion pppd[88]: Connect time 2858.5 minutes.
    Aug 10 17:56:31 zwitterion pppd[88]: Connect time 4119.0 minutes.
    Aug 12 13:48:27 zwitterion pppd[88]: Connect time 2628.2 minutes.
    Aug 13 06:02:27 zwitterion pppd[88]: Connect time 973.1 minutes.
    Aug 16 18:44:39 zwitterion pppd[88]: Connect time 5081.3 minutes.
    Aug 17 15:32:32 zwitterion pppd[88]: Connect time 1243.7 minutes.
    Aug 17 15:46:09 zwitterion pppd[88]: Connect time 12.7 minutes.
    Aug 22 04:47:32 zwitterion pppd[88]: Connect time 6539.3 minutes.
    Aug 22 11:34:09 zwitterion pppd[88]: Connect time 256.0 minutes.
    Aug 22 16:25:14 zwitterion pppd[88]: Connect time 127.5 minutes.
    Aug 25 05:01:13 zwitterion pppd[87]: Connect time 3452.9 minutes.
    Aug 25 20:03:42 zwitterion pppd[87]: Connect time 900.6 minutes.
    Aug 25 21:33:27 zwitterion pppd[87]: Connect time 88.8 minutes.
    Aug 26 12:43:13 zwitterion pppd[87]: Connect time 908.9 minutes.
    Sep  2 14:07:11 zwitterion pppd[86]: Connect time 4730.2 minutes.
    Sep  2 21:38:33 zwitterion pppd[86]: Connect time 290.7 minutes.
    Sep  4 13:14:14 zwitterion pppd[86]: Connect time 1414.2 minutes.
    Sep  5 04:34:15 zwitterion pppd[86]: Connect time 818.9 minutes.

Most of these are explainable with the rebooting that I've been
doing to test my new Hardware Raid from http://www.3ware.com/.

    First rule of disaster recovery: Practice ;)

In case you're wondering why the pid is very stable, I run pppd
at startup with the following stanza a /etc/network/interfaces.
The Debian pppconfig setup I did during the install hasn't been
touched ;)

    iface ppp0 inet ppp

> It is getting to the stage that ...when on the Internet, I use Windows
> for stability ... and you can imagine how difficult that is to
> contemplate.

This is a very bad state of affairs.

Yours sincerely,

-- Mark John Suter  | I know that you  believe  you understand
suter at humbug.org.au | what you think I said, but I am not sure
GPG key id F2FEBB36 | you realise that what you  heard  is not
Ph: +61 4 1126 2316 | what I meant.                  anonymous
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