I have a US Robotics serial modem, and I have smpppd enabled in system services, with wvdial and kppp installed.
When I try to set the modem up using yast, I keep getting hung up by the different screens. First a screen that asks if I need to dial a number to get out. I have to dial 9, so I have that entered. Then a screen that asks for “country” and “provider.” When I try to enter anything, nothing shows in the boxes, so I go to a screen that asks for the phone number, provider, user name and password. When I enter those, it goes to a screen that wants “Connection Parameters”, with default settings and the “buttons” at the bottom of the screen “muted,” or flattened out, i.e. unusable. That makes it impossible for me to set the information as saved, so it’s back to the beginning and sart over, with the same results over and over.
How do I get the modem so it dials out?
Not sure whats causing that problem. I don’t experience that. (If using kde, I note that one can change the style of the yast interface specifically for KDE).
Switch Yast Interface to QT - openSUSE Forums
This may or may not have anything to do with it.
Anyway, as a workaround you can use the ncurses version of yast simply by invoking yast from a terminal. You will need to be root first with 'su - 'command. Enter your root password when prompted, then type ‘yast’. You’ll be presented with a text-based interface. Navigate with [TAB] and arrow keys. See if that works better for you.
I’m using gnome, but I changed the interface to QT to see if it made any difference. It’s a little better, but when I finish (or so I think…) the screen returns to the Modem Configuration Overview, and my modem shows “Modem not configured,” and a box (as if there’s another modem) below that says “modem0”, with the provider name that I’ve just entered. So I have a working modem that yast sees, and a “phantom” modem that the modem set up doo-hickey thinks is just what I want to have.
How can i get the real modem hooked up. Better yet, if all I had to do was to give the software my provider’s phone#, my user name, and password, and let the @#$#% thing set it’s own stuff up…
If only. Thankfully this is just for work, and I have DSL and wireless at the house.
Are you sure the modem is not configured? During the yast modem configuration, automatic modem detection is attempted, but you can manually select the modem device while configuring.
- What does modem0 point to in the config (eg /dev/ACM0, /dev/ttyUSB0 relevent to your modem)?
The ‘modem0’ name just represents yast’s way of showing first modem configured. For any given modem, you can have more than one provider configured.
- Start KInternet from a terminal with ‘kinternet’. An icon should appear in the task bar. Right-click on the icon, you can set the interface (modem0, modem1 etc) and provider. What happens when you then try to dial in?
I have a US Robotics serial modem
Remind me what type (if you’ve stated in another thread), and is it usb? When plugged in does /dev/ttyUSB0 get created?
You mighht wnt to try testing with wvdial. The first step is to configure with something like
wvdialconf /dev/ttyUSB0
Now, if you run into permissions issues here, IIRC I think you need to be a member of the ‘uucp’ and/or ‘dialout’ groups first. Although if you have installed smpppd, this should have been taken care of. If in doubt, note the output of this command (as regular user):
groups
First let me say that I reread your first response and tried running yast from the terminal. Results were pretty much the same, and the last field "“connection Parameters,” I want to accept the default =manual set up (and I have no clue if this really what I want, but I figure I can go back in and change it if it isn’t.) But there isn’t any “next” button to do that with, so the page just sits there, and all I can do is close it, so it’s never “finished,” and then it’s back to the beginning, to start all over.
I had tried a usb external modem with no luck. I was amazed that my local used computer guy had an external serial modem, and when it turned out to be a U.S.Robotics (looks to me like: Sportster 005665-03) I was ecstatic.
/dev/ACM0, /dev/ttyUSB0 returned no such file. /dev/ttyS0 was permission denied. I will have to wait until I get to work to try a lot of this, since I don’t have a phone anymore line thanks to cell phone and DSL. I installed smpppd last night when I got home, I’ll see what that does later.
wvdialconf said that it found the modem at ttyS0. Groups didn’t do anything.
I was amazed that my local used computer guy had an external serial modem, and when it turned out to be a U.S.Robotics (looks to me like: Sportster 005665-03) I was ecstatic.
/dev/ACM0, /dev/ttyUSB0 returned no such file. /dev/ttyS0 was permission denied.
I didn’t ask you to try those - they were just examples. You have to use the device specific to your modem. In your case (serial port modem) this appears to be /dev/ttyS0. (So I assume you have a serial port available on your computer)?
Groups didn’t do anything.
What do you mean by this? The ‘groups’ command (run as regular user), should return any groups you are a memebr of (eg dialout video uucp).
BTW, if you do
ls -l /dev/ttyS0
you’ll see the ownership as ‘root uucp’, so you will need to add the user to the ‘uucp’ group first (via yast security and users).
I’ve just tried the text-mode yast modem configuration without issue, so you’re misunderstanding something here. The F10 key is used for ‘Next’ and ‘Finish’ (as outlined in menu at bottom of yast config page).
This is getting close to working. For anyone searching this to see what works, the f10 seemed to get me through the set up. I’m going to check out the yast conifg page- I’ve never seen that, and yast has more options than Dungeons and Dragons!
Yast security and users just shows me having “videos.” that may be the reason I’m having the problem I’m having now. Through a fair amount of “throwing everything at it I could come up with,” it somehow almost worked. After repeated attempts and doing odds and ends, it somehow dialed out!
I could hear the dial tones and back-and-forth tones but it wouldn’t connect. I read that rebooting helps when having problems with dial up, so i rebooted.
The first thing is a warning before loading the system that “could not update ICEauthority /home/me/ICEauthority”
Then when I try to get kinternet going, there’s a flag that says “There was an error setting up inter-process communications for KDE: could not read network connection list /home/me/.DCOPserver_localhost_0"then” check that dcopserver is running"
I entered “dcopserver” in the terminal as non-root, and it showed ICEauthority not writable, and a lot of other stuff I’m not going to put here because I’m typing this from another computer and using the one I’m trying to get working so I can see what it says.
By the way, I’m doing this with an old Thinkpad a22 dinasour…thanks, SUSE.
When I ran dcopserver, even though it said a bunch of stuff about not being able to do anything, it did start working, sort of. I think that’s when it actually dialed out and connected. After a few tries, it “worked,” to a degree, as it seemed to connect with the provider and stay connected. Unfortunately, even though the modem indicated it was connected, nothing could transmit or receive as far as data, so no web pages were displayed.
Do I just go back and edit yast security and users, typing in uucp and dialout?
The first thing is a warning before loading the system that “could not update ICEauthority /home/me/ICEauthority”
Then when I try to get kinternet going, there’s a flag that says “There was an error setting up inter-process communications for KDE: could not read network connection list /home/me/.DCOPserver_localhost_0"then” check that dcopserver is running"
Do I just go back and edit yast security and users, typing in uucp and dialout?
You haven’t been logged into the desktop as root by any chance? Thats where those type of errors normally originate from… 
In any case, you say you managed to dial out - was that with KInternet? If you can dial out, but no internet browsing was possible , you may have an issue with the name server(s). When next connected via dialup, type this in a terminal:
cat /etc/resolv.conf
and post result here.
cat /etc/resolv.conf just gave me the generic #'d out “blank form.” There’s a copy in /etc, but there’s no information in it other than what the file does, from what I see.
cat /etc/resolv.conf just gave me the generic #'d out “blank form.” There’s a copy in /etc, but there’s no information in it other than what the file does, from what I see.
-
Please verify that you typed that command while dialled out. If so, that is your problem - no name servers present (usually supplied/configured automatically at connection time).
-
Are you using NetworkManager for your LAN connection at home? For some users, dialup/kinternet doesn’t always play nice with NM, so you may need to disable it first:
Network Devices > Network Settings > Global Options > Network Setup Methods > Traditional method with ifup (instead of Network Manager)
This thread details this issue.
Yes, it was connected to the provider when I ran it. I’ll have to try disabling Network Manager, but as far as I know it wasn’t involved. You may be onto something though, since when I’m at home I use ethernet and wireless. How can I go from one to the other without having to do a lot of finagling?
Like the new look to the forum.
That worked! Network Devices > Network Settings > Global Options > Network Setup Methods > Traditional method with ifup (instead of Network Manager) did it all, and I didn’t have to use anything else. Just ignored the warning about dcopserver (ever been pulled over by one of those d-cops after a hard night of partying?)
After all those weird warbling noises, i was on the net. Like being in 2004 all over again. Many thanks.
Thats good news. 
Just for fun I was looking for a way to use my U760 cdma (Novatel USB Stick) device from IceWM and this absolutely works! I was really surprised its been a real pain on other systems until quite recently. Best of all it allows me to use custom domain nameservers. Something Networkmanager doesn’t do yet.