[vox-tech] networking

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Matt Holland (mdholland@ucdavis.edu):

> You think so?  PPPoE is really pretty easy to set up these days....

Glad to hear that, I guess.  I deliberately avoid it, as it's a horrid
and techically unjustifiable kludge that's best avoided.

In general terms, any additional mandatory layer of software is yet
another thing that can go wrong.  People think this isn't a problem,
until the day that setup doesn't work and it's necessary to do
diagnosis.  At that point, they learn the uncomfortable truth about how
presence of too many suspects tends to complicate one's diagnostic
efforts.

> I would suggest being aware of one possible hardware issue, though... 
> when I set up my DSL with Pac Bell 1.5 yrs ago, I had to specifically 
> request a modem with an ethernet interface; the other "option" was a USB 
> interface.  Maybe they've gotten away from that with the near ubiquity 
> of ethernet adapters in PCs now, but I'd make sure.

Yes, that's definitely another problem area.

-- 
Cheers,                   I once successfully declined a departmental retreat,
Rick Moen                 saying that on that day I planned instead to advance.
rick@linuxmafia.com                  -- Alan J. Rosenthal, in the Monastery