[wplug] Question on ISP rec's for Ligonier Area - follow up

[griffisb at bellsouth.net]

Thanks for all the responses on selecting a distribution and ISP for a remote user. And sorry this e-mail client doesn't do line wrap as good as it should - I'm writing from my work machine and using a web interface.

Anyway - I tried 3 distros on the laptop. Loaded SuSE 8.2 Personal, and it worked well, but dial-up was problematic. Then I installed Knoppix 3.3 to the hard drive, did an apt-get update, apt-get upgrade - and wound up with Debian Testing/Unstable. It worked, but I didn't like the look and feel for a new user laptop. Went to Mandrake 9.1. It installed well. Dial-up was a minor problem, but a symlinked /dev/ttyS4 to /dev/modem (the laptop has a Xircom 10/100 Ethernet+56 Cardbus card) solved the problem. Dial worked, but there was minor flakiness.

I decided to go back to SuSE 8.2 Personal, and got everything working. The dial issue was solved by configuring it in the initial installation. Now Ethernet and Dial work fine. Decided to load Windows True Typefonts. Also installed OpenOffice 1.1.0 alongside OOo 1.0.2. Installed Scribus 1.0.1. For kicks installed Yahoo Messenger (the RedHat 9 RPM on Yahoo's site seems to work with SuSE 8.2 so far).

Wish I had come back and read about Access995. I should have either subscribed or read the archives. Anyway - I read the archives today. I ended up going with Pittsburgh Connect. I sent a support request by e-mail and received a response from someone running Linux at home (Slackware and Mandrake) - and was impressed. So Internet is working, and KMail, Mozilla Mail, Ximian Evolution and KNode are all configured and ready to go.

Wrote a brief intro for my sister on using the laptop, and will include the boxed SuSE 8.2 Personal set. Anyway - thanks guys. I'll include a link to your users group in the documentation I send to my sister.