Hi! I've just installed debian potato  (stable) release 2 from scratch to
my home computer. I tried to configure my external modem to dialup. I had
to fix several things, which I suggest may the standard configurator
provide or at least man page or some howto state _clearly_ and visibly.

The wvdial install script found and properly configured the modem, asked
for my ISP account. So far good.

Notice: I suggest something like -- add another ISP ? config question.

Next, I viewed the config file created and found st. like:
[Dialer Defaults]
New PPPD = yes
Modem = /dev/ttyS0
Baud = 115200
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 S11=55 +FCLASS=0
<ISP name & password stripped>

Which looked fine. I tried to run vwdial. It didn't work. Of course it didn't.
For an unknown reason all modems in here require the 'ATX3' command, otherwise
the only response is 'NO DIALTONE'. I suggest a config question 'does your
modem needs an ATX3 command? [use if you encounter problems with 'NO DIALTONE']
Which would add ATX3 command as Init2 moving ATQ command to Init3 for instance.
i.e. the config file would now look like:
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATX3
Init3 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 S11=55 +FCLASS=0


Next, the configurator privides no option between tone/pulse dialing.
An unexperienced user certainly does not know that ATDT means tone dialing
which fails to work in here. I suggest another config question for tone/pulse
dial which would add 'Dial Command = ATDP' to Default config section.

The last and most tricky fix was to handle the DNS resolving. The setup
should provide a question 'Would you like wvdial to handle DNS name resolving
automatically [Y/n]?' and if the user respond no, it should print out a note
about /etc/resolv.conf. If the response was Yes then the configurator should add
the 'usepeerdns' option to /etc/ppp/peers/wvdial file.

Even after that I wan't able to connect my local ISP. I didn't give up
(even though I was pretty annoyed about that time ;) and found the
Stupid Mode = yes
parameter which fixed the things up for the particular provider. As this
one of the first things one may try to (probably successfully) get the things
working I suggest to make it more visible in docs or to even to note
something about it in deb package configurator. (A more detailed description
would be also fine, I wasn't certain what it exactly does, I've just tried...)

Enough for now, please, try to do something about this ;) [or at least
do a simple FAQ for dumb users like me ;)

Kamil Toman

Thanks for the suggestions.  These are all things we've been wanting to do
for a while, but there hasn't been time.  Some of them (especially the
resolv.conf stuff) can be a lot of work to do correctly, and others (like
ATX3 and ATDP) are needed by almost nobody, so it would just make the
configuration more complicated.

Note that using ATX3 causes your modem to _ignore_ the dialtone, which means
it'll try to dial even if someone is already talking on that line.  The
normal mode tries to detect the dialtone for a good reason, so it's better
to figure out why it didn't hear the dialtone than to simply have the modem
ignore it.

Good luck,

Avery

Hmm, I forgot that pppd added that feature recently.  You can put it in
/etc/ppp/options or /etc/ppp/peers/wvdial if you want to use it.

Hmm, obviously I've been in Canada too long... ATDP has been unnecessary
here for about 15 years.  I keep forgetting there are billions of people
elsewhere in the world.

I'm hoping to have time to work on the various free software releases
(wvdial, tunnelv, etc) sometime soon, so I'll see what we can do.  Anyway
I'll leave the Debian bug report open, which is almost like a FAQ :)

Have fun,

Avery

shouldn't usepeerdns at least be an option during wvdialconf?
In most cases (I.E most ISPs) it is the right thing to do.

At the moment new users will connect to the internet just fine
but won't know it because they have an empty resolv.conf and
nothing with work.

Of course usepeerdns can cause some problems with daemons such as
fetchmail and wwwoffle but for new users isn't it better enable it?

Note that the /etc/ppp/peers/wvdial that ships in the current wvdial
package (1.54.0-1) does contain the "usepeerdns" option, as you
requested here.

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