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1. That you have installed a version of Linux correctly (ie: Slackware, Debian, Redhat Mandrake, ect.)
2. You have a somewhat decent knowledge of the Linux operating system and it's components.
3. That your kernel supports ppp. Note: Most kernels coming out of the box already have ppp support enabled by default.
4. That you have a working hardware based modem, support is available for some Winmodems but this is out of scope of this document. (pppsetup supports LT Winmodems)
5. There is already a working script that sets the serial ports of your machine (Nearly all distributions have this out of the box.

Detecting The Modem

The first step before beginning the setup of ppp is to first have a working, and recognized modem. You should have your modem connected to a serial port (if its an external) or already in your machine, hopefully with no conflicts in resources. It is always a good idea to see what com ports are enabled in your bios before jumpering a modem to a particular com port or IRQ. You may need to disable one of your com ports in your BIOS before jumpering your internal modem to avoid complications. If you have an external modem you need not worry about anything except that the serial port you have connected your modem to is in proper working order. Linux treats all devices as files, which can make querying a modem quite easy. There are really only a few places a modem can hide in Linux. Com ports are listed differently in Linux. In DOS you have com 1, com 2, com 3 and com 4. In Linux, however; the following applies.

As you can see, things are a bit different here, but this does not prove to be too much of a problem. There are many suites in which you can download and use to detect your modem. Programs such as Seyon, or Minicom prove to be excellent testing programs. Since some people may not have these programs installed, we shall use a generic way of testing for a modem.

1. Login as root on your machine.
2. Pick your first ttySx for example /dev/ttyS1
3. Plug in a speaker to the speaker out of your modem and turn up the volume while also making sure that the phone line has been plugged into your modem.
4. Type the following at the shell prompt  echo -e "ATZ\n" > /dev/ttySx  where /dev/ttySx is the tty of the COM port you wish to test. Example:  echo -e "ATZ\n" > /dev/ttyS0
5. After you have typed this, type the following where /dev/ttySx is the tty you have used in the previous entry. Type the following at the shell prompt  echo -e "ATL1M1\n" > /dev/ttySx  after typing this and hitting enter, follow with echo -e "ATDT654-2133\n" > /dev/ttySx
6. If you here the handshake tones you have found your modem and it is capable of dialing. If you get no response after about thirty seconds, hit ctrl-c to kill the process and try again with another tty. NOTE: this does not connect you to Green Apple. It will simply cause the modem to dial in.

Hopefully, if all goes well, you have found your modem.

Getting Connected

After you have reached this point there are many tools available for setting up your internet connection via ppp. Many of these tools work in Xwindows, however many Linux users find it necessary to have their connection made available at boot time. Taking this into account, we shall setup our connection using a tool called pppsetup. This program is compatible with nearly all distributions of Linux. This program also solves the need for having an interface available through console at boot time, as well as the ability to configure your connection from console as root. There are however a few requirements for its use.

1. First you must have the ncurses library installed on your system. This library is used for the GUI of pppsetup. Most distributions of Linux come with this preinstalled. To check to see if you have this library, login as root and type the following at the prompt.   updatedb; locate ncurses  This will cause the database of files to be updated and for a search to be performed for the ncurses library. If you do not see the file libncurses.a anywhere then it is likely you need to download the ncurses library. You can obtain the ncurses library from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/. Downloading the file from another machine onto a disk is normally the best way to obtain the library, however you may need to break up the tar.gz into two separate files and place them onto two different disks. If this is the case make sure you unzip each file into the same directory before installing. If you are having trouble mounting your floppy disks look further down in the tutorial where I give the correct syntax for mounting a floppy. The normal configure, make and make install should do the trick for installation, and as always read the README file for more in depth configuration of ncurses.
2. Again, that you have a kernel that supports ppp either as a module or as native built in support.

Now to begin the installation of pppsetup, first obtain a floppy disk and access to a machine with a working internet connection. It is recommended that you perform these next steps with another Linux box of a friend's perhaps, or a  Windows/MSDOS based system.

1. First point your browser to http://greenapple.linux.tucows.com. In the box marked "Search for Software" type in pppsetup. In the pull down menu choose the option "Linux". After doing so hit the go button to proceed.
2. Once you have done this you should be shown the current version of pppsetup. Click the link and save the tar.gz to the disk you have previously formatted for either dos, or Linux (depending on what machine you are working from).
3. After doing so take the floppy to your machine running linux and perform the following as root to mount the disk. First cd to /mnt and check to see if there is a directory called floppy. If there is not a directory called floppy then create one and type the following:  mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy  This should mount the floppy under /mnt/floppy. If your disk contains a Linux Native filesystem you may omit the -t msdos from the mount command.
4. Now, type cd /mnt/floppy to place yourself in the mounted floppy directory. After doing so type cp ppp* /tmp which will cause the tar.gz file to be placed in /tmp .
5. After doing the following type cd /tmp; gunzip ppp*; tar -xvf ppp* which will first take you to /tmp then unzip the tarball and finally unpack the tarball into a directory much like the name of the tarball.
6. After finishing this step type ls to see the directory that was formed, then type cd thatdirectoryname to enter the directory. Finally type ./pppsetup
7. Follow the boxes, they should be pretty descriptive however you will need the following pieces of information, so copy them down or print out this document.

Note: If you have pppsetup-2.25 or higher, you may not be asked for DNS servers. Also PLEASE make sure you read the readme files with pppsetup. Not only are they educational, they may provide you with tips and tricks for getting the most out of your ppp connection. Just following through the boxes should be all that is required to set up pppsetup. After you are finished your files are stored in /etc/ppp/ and you may want to browse through them to look at the files.

 
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