*BSD News Article 53067


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From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@FreeBSD.org>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: PPP and or SLIP, connection problem, ijppp, xearth, X11
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 1995 01:10:31 -0700
Organization: Walnut Creek CDROM
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Message-ID: <3089FC77.6E9DD0DE@FreeBSD.org>
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1. I cannot reproduce your xearth error (xearth works just fine for me
and has for months).  Perhaps it's some weird interaction between
X and your VGA card, or some other component of your hardware?

2. I agree that ijppp is poorly documented.  I've never run it as a server,
   having only done that with SLIP, but I know that others have.  Given
   that the docs are written in Japanese, perhaps you want to ask on
   hackers@freebsd.org how people are managing it?

3. ppp was replaced by the tunnel device because I lacked room for both
   tun0 and ppp0 (in a kernel that will still boot in 4MB of memory),
   and ppp0 didn't offer any DIALING facilities..  Hence my choice between
   the two.  It's not that hard to recompile a kernel, after all, and ijppp
   works just fine in the *client* mode that most people (including myself)
   use it.  That fulfills its primary purpose, so I'm not too unhappy with
   the current state of affairs.  And yes, you can have both ppp and tun0
   in there at once.

4. You should be able to test PPP or SLIP on the 10.0.0.1 address (.0 is,
   BTW, INVALID!  Have you forgotten the all ones and all zeros reservation
   for broadcast?!?).

5. Finally, I appreciate your frustration but do realize that this is a free
   OS and people are supporting, documenting and writing it for free.  This
   means that there will be holes in our coverage in all these areas while
   we wait for volunteers, and that's really all we can do.  Atsushi's
   Japanese doc is a good example:  Yes, we know it needs to be translated
   and all the doc for ijppp probably re-written from scratch, but so what?
   Until someone with the time and energy actually does it, we're stuck with
   what we have and there's just no use in crying about it.  Until then,
   some additional technical expertise is *required*.

You may find that a commercial OS, with written documentation and a
support line, is more suitable for your needs.  That or even Linux,
which at least boasts a large library of available doc.  I wish we
here could offer you more, but what you see (modulo changes made for
2.1) is what we have..  We have a saying we use a lot around here,
which is ``UTSL'' - it stands for Use The Source, Luke!  Until our
documentation is a lot better, that's really the only advice that it's
possible to give for now! :)

Good luck.
-- 
						Jordan