Greetings from LinuxLand. I've just installed Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) and got dial up working. It took at least eight hours of solid work. First, I got the ISO file. Then, I run it through DaemonTools and see that to do the fullest install, I have to boot from CD. And since I was using a virtual drive, I obviously can't boot from it. Luckily, my cousin bought and forgot a pack of music CD-Rs last time she was here. I grab one of those and try to burn the ISO. Nero spits out the disc and says the drive was empty. I put in another. Nero spits it out and says the drive is empty. I research the problem for a long time, figure out that Nero's just being oversensitive about not wanting to turn a disc into a frisbee. So I download another CD burner, and actually manage to successfully burn the ISO. So I restart, trying to boot from disc.
I then discover that USB keyboards do not work during the critical part of BIOS where I get to choose what system to boot to. I end up booting to Windows by default. I research how to fix that little problem, because I don't want to have to use an old-style keyboard all the time just to select something to boot to. For future reference, there's a BIOS setting you can get to early on with an old-style keyboard. You know that stuff that appears right when you turn on your computer, that says something like "Push DEL for Setup"? Whatever key it says is what you should push. So I go in there, toggle the setting that was for some stupid reason defaulted to disable USB keyboards and mice. I reboot again.
I get to select Ubuntu this time. It starts up the purple Ubuntu load screen and... kicks me out to the BusyBox prompt with an error "Unable to find a medium containing a live file system". Which is dumb, because the installer it should be running from disc will go about making a partition, aka a file system space for Ubuntu to work in. I reboot in Windows, and research some more. There isn't a good answer. The problem is rare. People make dumb suggestions like "maybe your Live Disc is corrupt", when the thing runs just fine in Windows, not to mention the load screen works, etc. So instead of doing a full install, I give up on that train of thought and just install through Windows. Surprisingly, it works. I reboot into Ubuntu, and it successfully loads up the graphical interface. Everything seems to work just fine.
I go into Administration->Network Connections. There's options to set up all sorts of internet connections - except dial up. I reboot in Windows and research how to do it. It says there's an Administration->Network menu with a tab that has what I need. I reboot in Ubuntu and check - nope. I reboot in Windows and see why it isn't there. I need to download a package to get it. Notice the Catch-22 here - to get internet, you need internet. If it wasn't for me having a dual-boot setup for Windows, I would be fried here. I find how to get to files on the Windows C drive, so I can transfer it. I download that package. Reboot in Ubuntu. Transfer it over. Install it. Administration->Network exists then, except... the tab I need is completely missing. Everything else I need is there, but that one tab isn't. I reboot in Windows. Turns out that tab may not be the best way to go about things. Being open source, there's many different files and packages to do the same thing, and you get to pick and choose which you download. GNOME PPP Dialer is what I go with. I download it and its dependencies. Reboot in Ubuntu, and install them. I open up PPP Dialer.
I put in the username, password, and dial number. I dial an- wait, no I don't. The default modem doesn't exist. I go to that tab and autodetect modem. It can't detect a modem at all on my machine. I reboot in Windows and research. It may be skipping over a modem that actually exists. I check what my modem is, an Agere Softmodem, installed in PCI slot 2. I reboot in Ubuntu and select PCI slot 2, and dia- nope. It is a different error though. "Input/Output Error". I reboot in Windows and research.
Softmodems, also known as Winmodems, do not play well with Linux. There is a way to deal with the problem, but it will be hard. Hard enough that most people recommend paying $20 for a hardmodem and waiting a month for it to arrive, and then to go through the trouble of physically installing the thing. But no, I'm willing to wrestle with it. There is a website, http://www.linmodems.org, that is all about handling the issue. I have to download scanModem for Ubuntu to find out what chipset I'm using. So I do. I reboot in Ubuntu, install, and run the thing. It puts out a very technical and complicated file (has hex codes and such), but it tells me what chipset I'm using. I reboot in Windows. From what the file tells me, I download a precompiled driver. I reboot in Ubuntu. I install the file. I follow what the instructions, including Terminal instructions and... wait, error during one of the commands. What does "-e requires -E" even mean? I reboot in Windows and research. I need to compile the raw C files using Terminal. I download them, and reboot in Ubuntu.
I follow the instructions and compile the raw files in Terminal, and actually get the .ko files. I follow the instructions, and finally get a new driver file to point PPP Dialer to. I do that, dial, and it actually starts working... and then, right when it should have connected, it stops and says it failed. I check the log file. The modem is working. It dials. It gets a carrier... and then immediately drops it, right as the "Welcome to [provider].net!" message comes through. Apparently there's a timeout problem or something. I reboot in Windows and research. Well, that problem is rare. But there's some things I can try to modify in wvdial.config. I reboot in Ubuntu and open the file and start typin- wait, "Read-Only"? What's up with that? I go to the properties. "Settings cannot be modified because you are not the owner". What the heck, Ubuntu. I came to you partially because Windows was doing pretty much the same thing. I reboot in Windows and research.
I can apparently get at it from Terminal with the "sudo" command to run it as a super user. I reboot in Ubuntu and... discover that I have no clue how to get into the directory containing it from Terminal. And I can't move it because it's in the root level space. I look for a graphical "run as super user" thing. None exists. I reboot in Windows and research. People say stuff like "You really shouldn't need to, you can do it through Terminal with 'sudo'." without saying how to do it graphically. But eventually, eventually, I find the Terminal commands that will unlock user "Root", who has god powers over the system. I do it, and run as user Root. It works. I am RootKala. I tweak the wvdial settings. Dial. Fail. Tweak. Dial. Fail. Enable Stupid Mode and disable check for carrier, and add a ton of delay before disconnecting. Dial. And finally, a full day after I started the whole process, it connects. I am online.
I am probably going to use Ubuntu for anything that I don't specifically need Windows for. From a principle standpoint, I love free, open source things. From a practical standpoint, it is very reactive and very moddable. Having a dual-boot system is also a huge security boost. If a virus affects one system, or something brings down my internet somehow (like I had happen on Windows once when a new add-on brought down Firefox's ability to start up), I have the other system to work through the trouble.
Tl:dr -- Ubuntu was easy to set up through Windows, when I did exactly that. Dial up with a softmodem was probably the hardest computer thing I have ever had the displeasure of attempting, that actually succeeded.
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