[TriLUG] OT: Dial-Up ISP

[W W M]

Jason Tower <jason at cerient.net> wrote:
> Ack. Looks like you got one of my hot buttons on this one. I guess
> I'm saying that you have to be very careful in how you define 'Linux
> friendly'. My personal take on it is that anyone who doesn't hang up
> on you the minute you say that you're using Linux is 'Linux
> friendly', even if they can't help you troubleshoot your
> configuration or tell you exactly what's wrong. But that's just my
> take.

IMHO "linux friendly" can best be defined as "doesn't require 
proprietary crap to use it". in this case, a "linux friendly" dial-up 
ISP simply needs to make one thing possible - a standard PPP connection 
can be made with three pieces of info: a phone number, a username, and 
a password. anything that "requires" some special win32 app just to 
establish a connection is by definition not linux friendly.

case in point: one of my clients last year switched to bellsouth 
biz-class DSL, which uses PPPoE. since they are using a linux box as a 
nat gatway/firewall, i needed the proper auth info to set this up on 
the outside interface. the bellsouth techie absolutely insisted that 
you needed to run a win32 app to establish the PPPoE connection. after 
***three hours*** i managed to get someone on the phone who gave me the 
info i needed to set it up. i wasn't aksing them to do it for me, i 
just wanted the fscking auth info so i could do it myself. had they 
provided this upon request, i would call their service "linux 
friendly". instead, their ironclad insistence that i run windows, even 
when it wasn't actually necessary, won them my "don't ever do business 
with these jackholes ever again" award.

Hear, hear!! :-)


		
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