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Dialup access from Linux
Jun. 7th, 2005 10:44 amAt this week's meeting of the Macomb Oakland Fan Organization, my brother told me about an old man who my dad knows. All this man wants to do with his computer is use e-mail. When my dad serviced his friend's computer, it was so full of viruses that you had to wait almost ten minutes just for the "My Computer" desktop icon to respond. Depending on the hardware he's on, those two facts make him the perfect user of Linux with the Thunderbird e-mail client. However, before I recommend this to him, I'll bet you anything he's on a dialup access. Nobody with such limited need would bother with the expense of broadband.
I recall the first of my dozen-or-so abortive attempts to use Linux. I had Xandros loaded on a low-GHz Pentium1. (Still do actually.) But all I had at the time was dialup, and when I asked people at a Penguicon meeting how to access dialup from Linux, it boggled their minds that I wasn't on broadband. What boggled my mind was that elitists were keeping me from using software that they purportedly wanted to spread far and wide. How much trouble is it to leave in a function that would allow half the Internet users in the country to use your product? So, Xandros turned my computer into a paperweight and I never used it for anything worthwhile. Not one thing.
Why broadband only? If I weren't using somebody else's broadband right now, I would go back to $10-a-month dialup. Broadband is salivatingly convenient, but it's currently an overpriced luxury. I was very very pleased when I found out Ubuntu, true to it's promise of accessibility for everyone, has dialup access. See, now-- that is software that is truly free to everyone. And yet ironically, according to this link, Ubuntu's network config doesn't auto-setup a dialup account very well! You have to go through a special set of instructions. Good thing the old man has my dad to help him.
You know that old argument (which doesn't hold up very much anymore) about how you supposedly have to use Windows or Mac in order to have the software you want? Well, here is this old man who only wants the humblest of functions, email on dialup. He would be the perfect user for the social democratic benefits of Linux, as best exemplified by the Ubuntu philosophy, were it not for this irony.
I recall the first of my dozen-or-so abortive attempts to use Linux. I had Xandros loaded on a low-GHz Pentium1. (Still do actually.) But all I had at the time was dialup, and when I asked people at a Penguicon meeting how to access dialup from Linux, it boggled their minds that I wasn't on broadband. What boggled my mind was that elitists were keeping me from using software that they purportedly wanted to spread far and wide. How much trouble is it to leave in a function that would allow half the Internet users in the country to use your product? So, Xandros turned my computer into a paperweight and I never used it for anything worthwhile. Not one thing.
Why broadband only? If I weren't using somebody else's broadband right now, I would go back to $10-a-month dialup. Broadband is salivatingly convenient, but it's currently an overpriced luxury. I was very very pleased when I found out Ubuntu, true to it's promise of accessibility for everyone, has dialup access. See, now-- that is software that is truly free to everyone. And yet ironically, according to this link, Ubuntu's network config doesn't auto-setup a dialup account very well! You have to go through a special set of instructions. Good thing the old man has my dad to help him.
You know that old argument (which doesn't hold up very much anymore) about how you supposedly have to use Windows or Mac in order to have the software you want? Well, here is this old man who only wants the humblest of functions, email on dialup. He would be the perfect user for the social democratic benefits of Linux, as best exemplified by the Ubuntu philosophy, were it not for this irony.
