Hi Again, Many thanks to all who gave such thoughtful advice to my earlier query. Just thought I would report success - after a fashion. Everything I attempted still came to nothing so I removed the pci modem and attached an external serial modem to ttyS0. This was again detected by YaST/SuSE and configuration (after deleting previous settings) was straight forward. Sadly now nothing seemed to work. KInternet seemed to completely ignore the modem's existence, not even generating any log or error message. At which point I gave up and installed Red Hat 9. It failed to detect the modem but simply telling it there was a generic modem on ttyS0 solved the problem and I have internet and mail working quite happily. A pity because I rather liked the feel of SuSE but perhaps I need more experience of something a little simpler first. Best wishes, Angela John wrote:
Hi miss Angela,
First, take a couple deep breaths and relax. You're in a new setting and a new OS, and everything is confusing right now, so when you run into these little problems it seems like it's *much* larger than it really is, and it's completely understandable. The easiest thing to do right now is to open up YaST2 and get to where you setup the modem (yast2 modules->network devices->modem), and start it from the beginning. Just use the 'change' button on the lower window for 'already configured', and have your info handy for your ISP. The 'modem' on the top window should be 'ppp0', the type leave alone, and the 'provider' can be anything you want, it's just for *you* to recognize it as your dialup (I call mine 'The 'net'). Now, click on the 'edit' button for the top window and make sure everything is how you want it (mine is ttyS0, yours may be different of course), 'Modem device' should be the port your modem is on, ttyS0=COM1, ttyS1=COM2, etc., click the 'details' button just to make sure you have the baud rate set at 115,000, then click 'back'. Now click 'next', here, you'll want to tick the 'Custom Provider' and click the 'new' button, don't worry about the 'Name for dialing'. The 'Provider name', just put in foofoo.net (or whatever your ISP is called, for instance if it's bellsouth, put in bellsouth.net or my dialup if you want. Then put the phone number you need to dial. If you have to use a long distance number, put it in that way, but put the number you need to dial that your ISP gave you. Then at 'User name', place what your ISP gave you, and 'Password' what the ISP gave you (you don't want to tick the 'always ask for password' box, leave it blank). Click 'next' and now you should be at 'Connection parameters', I would leave the 'dial on demand' alone til you learn more about it, but place an x in the 'modify DNS when connected', leave 'stupid mode' blank too, but x 'Activate firewall'. At 'idle timeout' you might want to put '0' (zero), so that you don't keep getting timed out and knocked off the connection every x seconds. Click 'next' and you should be back to the original window again, and just click finish. If it asks you to do the 'mail' thing, just say no or cancel, and do that from Kmail itself instead. So open Kmail, and you may get some popup dialogue saying you don't have something or whatever, just click 'okay' or whatever it wants (it'll make sense to you when you see it, if you see it). Now, at the top of kmail, click 'settings' and configure. The 'Identities' portion is pretty straight-forward and you shouldn't have any problems filling anything in on those tabs. If it's empty, just click on 'new' and fill in the spaces. Next, click the 'network' icon on the left pane. In the 'Receiving tab' (sorry, going kinda backwards here) If it's empty, click 'add' (your ISP should have let you know if they have a POP server or whatever, just tick the appropriate thing). 'Name' can be anything (I call mine 'My mail'), login is your user name the ISP gave you, password is the one your ISP gave you, 'host' will be the news server (like mail.foo.net, or whatever your ISP says it is). 'Port' should already be filled in with '110', and you should x the box for save password. Next, on the 'Sending' tab, if it's empty, click 'add' and tick 'smtp', and in the 'named' it too can be anything you want to name it. For 'Host', that's *usually* smtp.foo.net (or whatever your ISP gave you), the 'port' is already filled in (25), then, if your server requires it, fill in your user name and password and x the box to 'save password'. This should be all you need to do, so click 'apply' and start downloading your email. I'm attaching a few snapshots to give you an idea of some things, hope you don't mind if this email is a little large. If you need more help, just holler on the NG or in the list...there's a lot more people smarter than me who'll help probably better.
Take care and be good,
John