Which distro is the easiest for dial-up

[ModelM]

"Stupid Mode" changes the logon procedure from open text handled by wvdial, to PAP/CHAP handled by PPPD. It wouldn't affect speed.

Yes, I installed using the package manager via the double-click. I've done nothing more to tune or tweak the driver.

With the driver from Dell, if you'll add "S95=45" to the init string, the modem will return additional info when it connects. This will include the protocol (V92, V90, V34, etc), DTE rate, DCE rate (both up & down), & compression (V42bis, V44). This info might be useful in helping diagnose what's going on.

I don't know if this command will work with the driver from Linuxant but, if not, theirs will have an equivalent command, I'm sure.

[zieglerj]

A tech support sent out some new init strings to try. At the first one an online speed test said it was getting 26 Kbs but when I go to install updates, they only download at 2.6 kbs. Could it be that the problem isn't in the modem or driver but in Ubuntu itself?

[ModelM]

One of the problems with dialup modems is finding a reliable method to measure throughput. The speed readout of the Synaptic package manager *cough* could be better.

Various websites will try to give you a speed measurement but you are at the mercy of many variables - protocol overhead (both tcp/ip & ppp), server location, traffic switching changes, etc.

You need a consistent & convenient tool which is both reliable & repeatable in order to gauge the true metric of your modem. And you have one.

When you are downloading a file for testing, just open a terminal & type:

pppstats -w10

This will print every 10 seconds the stats of the ppp interface. You can change the number to -w1 which will print every second but I prefer -w10 as it smooths the numbers somewhat. Using pppstats -w10 and rounding off to the first two digits will give you a good picture of data flowing across the interface. So a number of 49282 would be about 49k, not bad for a 56k modem. You'll see different number ranges for different file types depending on how compressible the file is, but with some time trying different file types you'll get a good feel for the numbers.