RH6.1 Usage...

[Craig Woods <drjung sprynet com>]

Hello all,

The term "non-expert' has come up once or twice in this list. It may be
time for some perspective. As an IT consultant, I have had my share of
trouble-shooting TCP/IP connectivity issues, among other issues, on
different networks. I have for some years now been involved in
installation of client/server applications on various platforms. In
addition to extensive experience with NT Server, I have specialized in
the installation and setup of various RDBMS's, such as Oracle8 and
Sequel Server, on many different SPARC's. Having seen the SunOS progress
from the early days of 2.xx up to 2.51, 2.6 and 2.7, I can safely say
anyone expecting this kind of reliability from a Linux distro is
expecting too much. While I am sure I am not an "expert", and there will
be plenty of people reading this post with a greater skill set than
mine, I am certain that, regardless of skill level, there are many
"bugs" that cause routine processes in RH6.1 to become more problematic
than one would expect. For example, I just spent six hours configuring a
modem, and setting up a simple PPP account. This was a straightforward
activity. My modem was an internal ISA, non-software type. I had no I/O
or IRQ conflicts. RH6.1 was, and still is, very inconsistent in letting
me do this. Now, when I connect to my ISP using the RH dialer, I cannot
access any web pages. It tells me the host or server can not be found
using what I know to be a valid URL. Does that ring a bell for anyone
out there? YES, I have fully supplied my PPP account with DNS info, even
though I am calling a DHCP server. This problem occurs on a dual boot
system I have built, NT Server, and RH6.1 Linux. My modem, on the NT
system is COM3, and in Linux it is ttyS3. This caused me a great deal of
consternation, when according to all Linux documentation, it should be
ttyS4. Maybe someone would have some thoughts about this. Just to see if
I was doing something wrong, I downloaded PhatLinux on the same machine,
and in about 30 minutes, using the KPPP program, I had my modem
installed, setup and configured. In addition, during this same 30
minutes, I had my PPP account setup and running. I was downloading my
mail msgs off my mail server within this time frame as well. Maybe one
of you "experts" could enlighten this "novice". Why does the RH dialer
not let me get out on the internet, even though I am clearly connected
at 31.6 to my ISP, with, again I add, all my DNS info complete? I am
missing some setup parameter? If I select the KPPP program that comes
with RH6.1, I can still connect to my ISP but my desktop completely
"freezes" leaving me with no functionality. Is this a "bug" or what? If,
by happenstance, Billy or his boys is monitoring this list, Billy will
sleep well tonight.

Humbled by RH6.1
Craig