help convincing my dad that linux is the way to go

[UniPhil]

hi I got my knoppix cd working and now I will need a way to convince my dad that we need to switch to linux.

I so far havent been able to figure out how to get my adsl sympatico internet modem to work yet and that will definetly need to work for him to want to use linux. any help would be appreciated.

he's still not completly taken with the whole open source thing. it took him about a week and the computer shop guy to convince him that firefox was a good idea. the gimp took less time, but he never really uses graphics editing stuff that much anyway.

basically i just need to convince him that he can trust his computer with something I downloaded from the internet, and that linux is not just for geeks and he will be able to use it.

[Vergil83]

[quote="UniPhil"]
I so far havent been able to figure out how to get my adsl sympatico internet modem to work
[quote]
what is the actual make of modem

basically i just need to convince him that he can trust his computer with something I downloaded from the internet, and that linux is not just for geeks and he will be able to use it.

Ask him if the constant MS security issues are comforting. Why does he trust a company with an awful record? No one can see what MS has in their softwre. However, with linux people and look at the source and see for themselves if there is any security or spyware concerns. The only way for him to believe that he can use it is from him to use it. Good Luck

[UniPhil]

the modem is an alcatel speed touch usb modem. it is adsl and plugs into my usb. when I try to configure the internet, it detects it as plugged into the ethernet, and tries to work but then it gives me an error message. I will post what the message says when I try it again.

[UniPhil]

When I try to configure the modem, it takes a while, does some stuff, then gives me the message "Sorry, I scanned 1 interface(s), but the Access Concentrator of your provider did not respond. Please check your network and modem cables. Another reason for the scan failure may also be another running pppoe process which controls the modem".

What should I do?

[gwalters]

make sure that you dont have anything called or resembling pppoe running on your system then try again :P

[UniPhil]

ok.... how exactly do I check? (I am new to linux)

[mechmaster]

try:

snice

in the command line, this may be the command hope this helps

[gwalters]

is your modem even recognized by the kernel? type 'dmesg | less' and look for anything related to it. Failing that take a look at http://www.linux-usb.org/SpeedTouch/LFS/index.html

[profanity42]

Uniphil, i am having the same exact problem. every time i download a new distro or livecd, i tell my dad, "hey look at this!" he knows that microsoft is bad, but i think he's afraid that something horrible will happen or that nothing will be compatible with anything.