dial-up trouble

[marquitico]

Non-TinyCore distro. Used to connect to web with wvdial just fine. Now throwing out:

cannot set tty to ppp discipline

error to console. No changes to filesystem that I can see. Nothing in /var/log/messages or dmesg.

First, what does this error mean, and can I fix it by activating something manually?

Second, based on the answer to my first question, what might make that suddenly not work automatically, like it did before?

Sorry if this is too vague to be much use. I've never seen this error before, and Googling produces discussions that are too technical for me.

Same box connects to web just fine with a different distro (like TinyCore, for example ), so have eliminated failing hardware theory. Where would you start to look?

[Rich]

Hi marquitico
From what I've found on-line, the   discipline   is how the tty device deals with data. In raw mode
it leaves the data untouched. In canonical mode (the default) it interprets certain characters to
allow for line editing. In ppp mode it manages packets. Here is a link if you want to read more:
http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/tty/index.php
Something must have occurred to cause this, so you might want to think back a bit. Did you install
a new kernel? Update any software packages? Install any new software packages? Remove any
software packages? Have an abnormal shutdown? Change any hardware in the machine?
Just a guess on my part, but if you do an   lsmod   you should see a module with   ppp   in it's
name, if you don't, that's probably what's causing that message.
Still guessing, it's possible the   /dev   directory should have a   ppp   or    ppp0   device listed
that disappeared, boot Tinycore to try to confirm (or deny) that.

[marquitico]

TY for this link!!! Will spend a little time digesting the info.

Meanwhile, in answer to your questions (new kernel, new software, new hardware, et cetera), the answer is always no. This is because I'm using that distro only as a live CD with a persistent home on a USB pendrive, so the basic file system is static. I am new to it (TinyMe Linux, which is a Unity Linux fork), and am just checking it out as a favor to a pal of mine. So I have not tried to install it, or even add small packages from its repos, but have only done a few cosmetic setting-type things (GTK2 theme, cursor size) which can be saved in home. It worked straight outta the box for a week straight until yesterday...

I like your idea about a missing kernel module. Will lsmod TinyCore and compare my results.

[marquitico]

Ah, and a missing kernel module was what it was, indeed. Very grateful to you, TY. The "ppp discipline" business is governed by ppp_async and its dependencies. So I have this distro functional again.

Anybody have any thoughts as to why a set of kernel modules should stop loading when they were previously loading automatically?

[gerald_clark]

Use AppBrowser to update your dependencies.

[marquitico]

gerald_clark, if you will reread my original post, you will see that the first thing I wrote describing this issue is:

Non-TinyCore distro.

It doesn't pertain to TinyCore, and there is no AppBrowser. Which is why it's here in the "Off-Topic" section.