If no network was configured during the first stage of the installation, you will next be asked whether you wish to install the rest of the system using PPP. PPP is a protocol used to establish dialup connections with modems. If you configure the modem at this point, the installation system will be able to download additional packages or security updates from the Internet during the next steps of the installation. If you don't have a modem in your computer or if you prefer to configure your modem after the installation, you can skip this step. In order to configure your PPP connection, you will need some information from your Internet Service Provider (ISP), including phone number, username, password and DNS servers (optional). Some ISPs provide installation guidelines for Linux distributions. You can use that information even if they don't specifically target Debian since most of the configuration parameters (and software) is similar amongst Linux distributions. If you do choose to configure PPP at this point, a program named pppconfig will be run. This program helps you configure your PPP connection. Make sure, when it asks you for the name of your dialup connection, that you name it provider. Hopefully, the pppconfig program will walk you through a trouble-free PPP connection setup. However, if it does not work for you, see below for detailed instructions. In order to setup PPP, you'll need to know the basics of file viewing and editing in GNU/Linux. To view files, you should use more, and zmore for compressed files with a .gz extension. For example, to view README.debian.gz, type zmore README.debian.gz. The base system comes with an editor named nano, which is very simple to use, but does not have a lot of features. You will probably want to install more full-featured editors and viewers later, such as jed, nvi, less, and emacs. Edit /etc/ppp/peers/provider and replace /dev/modem with /dev/ttyS# where # stands for the number of your serial port. In Linux, serial ports are counted from 0; your first serial port (i.e., COM1) is /dev/ttyS0 under Linux. On Macintoshes with serial ports, the modem port is /dev/ttyS0 and the printer port is /dev/ttyS1. The next step is to edit /etc/chatscripts/provider and insert your provider's phone number, your user-name and password. Please do not delete the \q that precedes the password. It hides the password from appearing in your log files. Many providers use PAP or CHAP for login sequence instead of text mode authentication. Others use both. If your provider requires PAP or CHAP, you'll need to follow a different procedure. Comment out everything below the dialing string (the one that starts with ATDT) in /etc/chatscripts/provider, modify /etc/ppp/peers/provider as described above, and add user name where name stands for your user-name for the provider you are trying to connect to. Next, edit /etc/ppp/pap-secrets or /etc/ppp/chap-secrets and enter your password there. You will also need to edit /etc/resolv.conf and add your provider's name server (DNS) IP addresses. The lines in /etc/resolv.conf are in the following format: nameserver xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx where the xs stand for numbers in your IP address. Optionally, you could add the usepeerdns option to the /etc/ppp/peers/provider file, which will enable automatic choosing of appropriate DNS servers, using settings the remote host usually provides. Unless your provider has a login sequence different from the majority of ISPs, you are done! Start the PPP connection by typing pon as root, and monitor the process using plog command. To disconnect, use poff, again, as root. Read /usr/share/doc/ppp/README.Debian.gz file for more information on using PPP on Debian. For static SLIP connections, you will need to add the slattach command (from the net-tools package) into /etc/init.d/network. Dynamic SLIP will require the gnudip package. PPPOE is a protocol related to PPP used for some broadband connections. There is currently no support in base configuration to help you set this up. However, the necessary software has been installed, which means you can configure PPPOE manually at this stage of the installation by switching to VT2 and running pppoeconf.