Need help getting on the net with Dialup/PPP [SOLVED]

Milbog_McLoon · n00b Joined: 04 Jun 2005 Posts: 32

I finally got my gentoo linux working, now I need to get it on the net. Is there any good programs to use?

I'm trying to use WVDIAL, but when I try to emerge it it has like 30 dependencies, many I don't have. I am in the process of downloading them, but some of them have X11 in their title, I'm assuming that's Xwindows which I don't have. Will this work if I get all the dependencies? Is there a better dialup program I can use?

Thanks.

tomvollerthun · Guru Joined: 19 Mar 2005 Posts: 316

wvDial is, as far as I know, a helper application for ppp (the command line application).
It helps you configuring your connection as well as connect and disconnect your provider.

If you can configure ppp yourself, you can ommit wvDial and use ppp directly,
but when I've been a modem user (and unexperienced Linux user at the same time), I found wvDial to be absolutely incredible: for me it was the only possibility to get online. Later I could configure ppp myself and had no need for wvDial anymore and now I use DSL which makes many things very easy.

As to the dependencies: I don't know which they are, but yes, normally X11 means a program has a GUI for XWindows.
When I used wvDial, it was a commandline tool, so no GUI. Perhaps one was added and that pulls the dependencies in? If that annoys you, maybe there's a USE flag to disable a GUI?
I don't know of a better dialup program, for me this one was the best!

cu, tom
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corley · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 12 May 2005 Posts: 78

Well.. as with any gentoo emerge the good things are that you can remove the items from your use flags that you don't want, or optionally specify specific use fiags when you install something.

1st try emerge -pv <package_name>

Then you should see the required packages. You can also check your use flags in /etc/make.conf and specifically set that up for the packages you want. An example would be putting "jpg" in your use flags if you wanted all the applications (or the ones that supported it) to compile with jpg image support. The idea here is to remove the support for X11 in your case.

Then you can emerge the package again.. shouldn't be nearly that many. Actually if you have downloaded the iso image for the CD, burned it and used that to install, then you should have ppp and everything else on there too.. check the cd. If you don't have one.. you should just make one and do it that way... You are stuck in a catch 22 otherwise since you need ppp to connect and you cant download it without ppp

Milbog_McLoon · n00b Joined: 04 Jun 2005 Posts: 32

Thanks, I'll try the WVDial without X windows. I can transfer the files, I download them on my Windows computer,
burn a cd and mount it in linux.

What would be the file and the syntax where I would remove the Xwindows files for the emerge?

toralf · Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 1:31 pm Post subject:

Milbog_McLoon · n00b Joined: 04 Jun 2005 Posts: 32

Hi. I tried that use command, but when I do

emerge --pretend wvdial

a lot of x11 packages still show up. will they be skipped over when they are reached in the list?

Also do I need cups for wvdial? How do I eliminate that?

tomvollerthun · Guru Joined: 19 Mar 2005 Posts: 316