Okay, here is an update/summary. 1) Entering Alan's login details on my laptop (running the same version of Mepis) allows my laptop to connect with no trouble. This indicates there's nothing tricky to connect to iHug. Also, the choice of PAP/CHAP or other authentication is moot- I left the default selection in kppp (which is PAP/CHAP), so all we had to do was enter phone number, username & password. 2) There was a problem with Alan's 'modem commands' in kppp- they were all blank. I assume they didn't start off that way, but we had to copy the entries from a working version (i.e. reset 'ATZ', hangup '+++ATH', Connection response 'CONNECT' etc.). These seemed to be blank when creating a new modem device too. It's only an incidental problem though. 3) When we try to connect, everything works, until it is time to authenticate, then pppd dies or something times out. I don't recall the exact error message kppp reports, but we tried a few times as I have seen that happen occasionally on a known working system. I did take a look at /var/log/messages and scribbled down the most interesting one. Notably the 'noauth' option in /etc/ppp/options is present by default in a Mepis installation. 4) I took with me an external 56k modem. We plugged it into the serial port and entered the details into kppp. Without doing anything other than selecting the new modem we dialled in and were successfully connected (albeit at 9600bps).
So, I conclude that it is something subtle with the driver (or modem, but because the driver and the modem are one, it's a bit tricky). The most telling message in /var/log/messages is "LCP timeout sending config requests". I have Googled this (together with "ltmodem") and found some suggestions, but I am not at Alan's anymore, and can't try anything. Andrew
