Virgin Media/ Cable Internet - Linux

[Jonny88]

Has anybody any experiance with Virgin Media or similar UK cable broadband supplier and Linux, I'd like to know how well modems and the service work with linux. Cheers

[antidrugue]

Linux should work regardless of your Internet provider or modem, as long as this modem is an ethernet one (so avoid USB modems).

[daark.child]

I use Virgin Media and it plays nicely with Linux although they won't officially support Linux (if you have a problem, don't mention you are using Linux). Just remember to use ethernet instead of USB if you want decent performance.

[chaosAD]

I can't connect to the internet using kubuntu, yet if I boot from kubuntu's live setup CD the connection works fine. So I called virgin media's help line and asked them for help, not one of them knew anything about Linux or how to correct the issue so the answer is NO they suck. And I still can't connect to the internet so I'll guess I'll just have to keep using Windows

[daark.child]

I'm not surprised they were not able to help you, because the issue seems to be related to your distros network setup rather than the Virgin Media internet service. If they test the connection on their side and it works fine, then they are not obliged to help you if you don't use Windows or MacOS.

How is your network setup and do you connect directly through the cable modem to the net?

[chaosAD]

Yeah I connect directly through to my ISP through a cable modem, I've written down all the network settings in windows. Then rebooted into kubuntu but the IP, subnet, gateway and DNS is all the same as in Windows. it's weird if I turn the modem on and off the network connection will work for a brief moment maybe 30 secs or less then I lose the connection again.

[dilbert]

Can you switch debug output on with your kppp or what it is?

The same thing would happen if some of your credentials like user name or password are mispelled.

Happens this consistently or just only a few times?

I'm also with that company and since they are Virgin now, my modem connection has the strange behaviour that every second or third day or so but sometimes one day after another, my connection gets disconnected exactly twice in the first minutes.

The difference to you is that I get a working connection at least for half a minute or so, but maybe they have similar problems with their broadband lines, too. Who knows what happens there behind the scenes.

[chaosAD]

Not sure how to set the debug on, Like I said before if I boot from the Kubuntu Setup CD I can connect to the internet just fine its when I boot from the HDD I'm having problems.

So I'm thinking maybe something went wrong during the installation. I've also found the KDE to be very buggy, when I'm at the logon screen and I type in my password I see two '*' stars for every one key I press it still logs me in as the admin properly, but it is very annoying.

Another issue I have with KDE is system crashes, when I try to change anything in the network setup sometimes the computer comes to a halt. I don't want to remove Linux because I've heard so many great things about it and I feel alot safer browsing the web using Konquerer. So any help I would appreciate a lot ty

PS. I apologize if I have started an off topic discussion.

[dilbert]

This double character issue would fit the case that the password is rejected.

You can switch debug on in this KDE kppp program, or how it's called. I mean this program where you enter all your credentials and then start dialling.

I think you can have debug on the screen only or into a file. It is only to see messages like "connection refused" or the like.

But when you got already problems entering the password then it's almost sure that this is the culprit.

I don't know if you can revert to Gnome or something else or you re-install your KDE. I guess you will run into more problems. There must be something wrong with your KDE installation. Fixing that might fix your dialling problem.

[dilbert]

its when I boot from the HDD I'm having problems.

I had once problems with Windows 95 that "forgot" parts of the network configuration. I never found the error until the day it dared also to "forget" the password.

Such loss of data can be errors etremely difficult to find, so I would first try to get a stable GUI.