Last Updated on September 30, 2010 by Dave Farquhar
I’m writing this from my new house, connected via DSL to my Web server, running off my DSL connection at my apartment. Let me say this: DSL was much easier in the early days when you just got a DHCP connection. Configuring PPPoE is a royal pain.
But I’ve got an old Pentium with a pair of NICs in it running Coyote Linux, with an old Celeron PC running Windows 98 connected via a crossover cable, since the Linksys router is still at the apartment keeping the magic alive there.
DSL works most reliably from my front room, which isn’t what I want to use as a computer room, so I guess I’ll be running some Ethernet cables.
But most importantly, I can now respond to late-night pages and pcAnywhere into the network at work and fix things. So I guess that means I can start sleeping here. That’ll be nice. This neighborhood is a lot quieter than my apartment complex.
Interestingly enough, as I cobbled together some PCs from parts to get this stuff up and going, I found some Pentium motherboards that wouldn’t even boot Windows 98 properly (the DSL setup has to run from Windows). Linux installs effortlessly on them.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.
DSL was much easier in the early days when you just got a DHCP connection. Configuring PPPoE is a royal pain.
That’s one of the best things about Verizon DSL here in Plano (Dallas). Regular ol’ DHCP – none of this PPPoE nonsense… And I made sure to tell them that when they called shortly after the install to see how I liked it 🙂
I can’t really blame SBC for going PPPoE though. Someone I used to work with (who will remain nameless) was complaining about how sometimes he’d turn his DSL modem on and couldn’t get a connection. But then he gloated about how he had his modem plugged into a hub with a half-dozen computers on it and sometimes he could pull six IP addresses even though he was only paying for one.
I told him it was because of people like him that he sometimes couldn’t get even a single address. He just shrugged his shoulders.
I’ve got Ameritech DSL (who is owned by SBC) and I never had to install the PPPoE software on my machine. I just set up the account on dialup and plugged the parameters into my router and it came up and worked. All before the official “go live” date, too. And it’s been really solid ever since then.
Putting the DSL modem and the router on a UPS helped stability a lot!
I might have been able to get by with just plugging the info into my router, but since the modem was flaky at first (in all fairness, it was probably the phone jack I was using), I opted to do everything the “supported” way just in case I had to call SBC for help. I was about ready to give up and call for support when it finally started working.
Interesting news! I am trying to find a changelog….
/Dave T.
The current release date of Freesco 0.3.0 is set for 11/01/2002.
This date is not cast in stone and is dependant on whether there is any major bugs found in the current version that would require changes and more testing.