DSL modem support in Fedora Core needs system-config-network support.

[David Woodhouse]

(Originally sent to fedora-config-list but trapped for moderation, and I
may get volunteers here too...)

Fedora Core 3 supports PPP over ATM (PPPoA) with any DSL modem which the
kernel can use as an ATM device -- currently that's only USB modems
based on the Alcatel SpeedTouch chipset, but we're working on more
hardware drivers.

The updated packages in rawhide also support PPP over Ethernet over ATM.
(PPPoE with a real DSL modem, not over _real_ Ethernet to an external
DSL modem/bridge). That should work fine in FC3 too if you update your
rp-pppoe and install linux-atm packages from the yum repo at
ftp://ftp.infradead.org/pub/linux-atm/

To connect, first you need to install the firmware for your modem
into /lib/firmware (see the speedtouch-firmware.nosrc.rpm in the same
FTP directory) and then you need to configure it. You can just set up an
xDSL connection with system-config-network, then modify the resulting
configuation file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ppp0 as follows.

For PPPoA, remove the 'ETH=' line, and add something like:
        LINUX_PLUGIN=pppoatm.so
        VCI=0
        VPI=38

Replace the '0' and '38' with the appropriate values for your ISP.
There's 
a table at http://linux-
usb.sourceforge.net/SpeedTouch/faq/index.html#q12
which may help. 

For PPPoE, also remove the 'ETH=' line, and add:
        LINUX_PLUGIN=rp-pppoe.so
        BR2684DEV=0
        VCI=0
        VPI=38

(again with corrected VCI= and VPI= values).

It would be useful if system-config-network could do that for you. Any
volunteers for doing that? There's an update for the 'New Device' UI at
http://david.woodhou.se/ADSLInterfaceDruid.glade but I don't talk
Python, and system-config-network from CVS doesn't even build at the
moment due to autocrap problems. 

All we need to do is make 'DSL modem' one of the options in the newly-
renamed 'Hardware device' box. Then if 'DSL modem' isn't chosen, shade
out the options for VCI, VPI and protocol. If it _is_ chosen, then write
out the config file according to the above instructions.

The UI for _editing_ devices also wants to be updated similarly.

It might also be useful to extend the providerdb with VPI/VCI/proto
information for various ISPs. 

In the longer term, kudzu could perhaps learn to look
in /proc/net/atm/devices for ATM-capable devices, but that wouldn't show
up a SpeedTouch modem before its firmware is present anyway, so I
wouldn't want that to be the _only_ way the user can choose to use a DSL
modem.

-- 
dwmw2
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Subject: DSL modem support in Fedora Core needs system-config-network support.
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 14:48:28 +0000
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