Dialup ISP's That Work with PCLinuxOS

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How To Connect To AOL Using A Dial Up Modem

by Papawoob

NOTE Please be aware that for editing the configuration files below you will have to temporally be root.
Do remember to log out of root after the editing and log back in as a user.

After spending several hours figuring this out I thought that I should put this in a how to just in case anyone that is still using dial up and AOL ("BIP" to the Europeans) can connect to the Internet while using Linux. The first thing we need to do is check in the PCLOS repositories and find a program by the name of Penggy. This is necessary because for some reason, the people at AOL do not find it pertinent to follow the same standards that everyone else uses. Once you have found Penggy, download and install it using the Synaptic Software Manager or Kpackage. You can download the source code and find more info at: http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/pengfork#options∞.

I will assume that you know what modem device you are using (e.g. /dev/ttyS0 (external) or /dev/ttyS3 internal COM4) and that everything works to connect to a "normal" ISP. Now we get to the fun part and do a bit of editing to three configuration files. These are aol-secrets, penggy.cfg, and phonetab. We now need to edit each of these configuration files. The Penggy folder should be located in /etc/penggy. Once you have located it, you need to open it. Once it is open you should see five files named: aol-secrets, ip-down, ip-up, penggy.cfg, and phonetab.

Now we need to open the first file, aol-secrets with your favorite text editor or just left click the file and it should open in Kwrite. It should look similar to the text below. We now add our screen name and password at the bottom of the existing text, but without the brackets <>.

## Secrets for aol authentication
## screen_name		secret
##
# dark			s3kr3t
# vador			p455w0rd
# luke			f0rce
<your_screen_name>      <password>

After you have done this you need to save the file by clicking on the pull down menu File then Save; and then close the editor.

Next we need to edit the second file named phonetab. Once again, we need to open this file with our favorite text editor.
It should look similar to the text below:

## Phonetab: phone numbers to use for connection.
## 
## 'PPP compatible' and 'type' fields are not mandatory
## by default the number is considered not PPP compatible and of type aolnet
##
## Phone	PPP compatible		type
##
# 12345
# 12345		no
# 12345		no			aolnet
<9102219550>
<9102240038>

Above you need to add any phone numbers that we use to dial up and connect to AOL. Add them at the bottom of the existing text without the brackets <>. Now save the file and close the editor.

Lastly, we need to open the third file penggy.cfg with our text editor again. I will show the pertinent sections that we need to edit below as the file is to large to show here. The first section should look similar to the text below:

## Parameter: modem_device
## Type: path
## Description: sets the serial device to use for the modem.
## Default: /dev/modem
##
## The default is probably good if /dev/modem is a link to your real serial
## device your modem is attached to. Otherwise change this parameter.
##
# modem_device = /dev/ttyS0
modem_device=/dev/ttyS4

Here we need to add in where your modem is located. If your modem shows up as /dev/modem ( see the Default above ) then you do not need to make any changes here. However, if your modem shows up as something else, such as /dev/ttyS4 (which I have found to be the case with most internal hardware modems), you will need to add it at the bottom of this section the modem_device line as shown above.
When you have finished this we need to move onto the next section in the penggy.cfg file that should look similar to the text below:

## This option is used to tell penggy to connect on this screen name.
## You really need to change this parameter or pass it at the command line
## prompt, or penggy will complain about not having any screen name to
## connect as.
## 
# screen_name = foobar
YOUR_SCREEN_NAME

Here, we again have to add in our screen_name as shown above. There are other settings that we can change, but I have found that the defaults have been well thought out. If you are satisfied, you can now save and close the text editor.

TAKE NOTE Having edited the three configuration files, you should log out of being root and log in as a user (added by Wiki editor)

There is only one thing left to do now and that is to connect to AOL. To do this we need to open a terminal.
Terminals can usually be found in your start menu or in the panel that runs along the bottom or top of your desktop.

Once you have opened the terminal, you need to type su and then press Enter (or Return ).
This will give you root ( administrator ) privileges, as Penggy requires these to run.
Next, we need to type penggy and then press Enter.
You should see some text come up in the terminal and you should hear your modem dialing.
The next thing you should see in the terminal is text saying connecting and authenticating, etc.
Finally, you should see that you are connected. As long as the terminal stays open you should be online.
When you are done surfing, all you need to do to disconnect is to close the terminal.

Each time you want to go online, all you need to do is follow the steps in the connect to AOL above.

Comment by the original poster = I hope this will be helpful and save some of you considerable headaches.

CategoryCompatibility

PCLinuxOS New User Guide : DialupISPs

Dialup ISP's That Work with PCLinuxOS

How To Connect To AOL Using A Dial Up Modem