ISPs have no idea

[tornadof3]

Hello all

Just wondering if anyone has found an ISP (especially in the UK) that is helpful toward getting linux systems working.

I just got a cable internet connection at home, with a cable modem supplied by ISP (thankfully ethernet connection and not USB). The help guide they supplied had "PC" (i.e. Windows) and "Mac". No other options and, just as annoying, it didn't have a 'settings' page for those who knew what they were doing but just needed the settings (eg Primary DNS IP address). Also, if you actually did take the time to install their crappy CD on your windows PC, it would have the net effect of unnecessarily slowing your computer down.

I managed to ring customer support who, whilst having no idea how to help with linux, were surprisingly polite & helpful (this IT customer support actually knew what the terms "IP address", "MAC address", "DNS server" meant!). He gave me the IP address to connect to the registration server to set up my connection's account and then gave me the primary DNS IP so I could get name resolution fixed. But if they had printed this in their little booklet to start with, it would have been SO much simpler... and I can't really assert that they make it hard on purpose so you ring them to pay high call charges, because the first question the chap asked is if I wanted to give him MY phone number so that he could call ME back! So it only costed about 30 seconds' worth of call time!

[ryptyde]

I have used 2 different ISPs over the years at my residence and neither one were of help when Linux was mentioned as my OS. Fortunately though they were helpful in that my hook-up agreement contained all the necessary info needed to establish a connection.

When I was a struggling newb I had to use Windows to visit the Linux sites to try and figure things out to get a dial-up connection only to find that my "winmodem" was not going to work. Most ISPs are helpful but just not knowledgeable about Linux but things are slowly changing.

ps: I have never used their "setup/install" discs as they just contained a bunch of bundled useless crapware anyway and was of no use to me anyway.

[woppa30]

I can sympathise with the shoddy service of what is now Virgin media (the one and only cable company in the UK) For the average user they need to make it simple which means throw a cd in, set up your account which registers the MAC address of your cable modem and your PC and gets you up and running with their pop email accounts (5Mb mailbox limit, who are they kidding....)
For more advanced / intelligent users the URL of the registartion page would be great, it can be found by googling but of course requires a working internet connection. Their DNS servers are also available by googling but again that requries a working connection.
If you ever need to ring them be prepared for a wall of silence when you tell them that you are running linux and that you can't do a Start -> Run because you don't have windows :-) rest assured that when it works, which is most of the time, its very relaible. My first solution is to reboot the cable modem by a hard power down (yank the opower lead for 10 seconds) then reboot everything else including my router. If that fails afater 30 mins I will ring Virgin but not before. Most faults are temporary.... good luck