[ale] Comcast linux...

[Michael H. Warfield]

On Tue, Jan 06, 2004 at 11:10:36AM -0500, Byron A Jeff wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 06, 2004 at 08:01:55AM -0800, Berlin Brown wrote:

> > Funny thing, I was thinking about it, just at the moment of doing it.  I
> > was going to load up redhat, and open up mozilla and pretend that this really
> > is Windows 2003 or something or tell him I have the latest skin, that is why
> > the start and my computer are missing.  But then again, that would be mean.

> The problem is that they have ingrained behaviors. For example

> "Click Start->run. Type winipcfg. Press release... then renew..."

> I know what that means. But the techs only understands this in a Windows 
> context. And funnily enough there are times that they are right. One thing I
> like about Comcast is the near permanent IP addressing. But after a multihour
> outage all bets are off. One time the modem was fine but the machine wouldn't
> connect. Called Comcast and told them some type of Windows box. Got the Release
> Renew speech, which I laughed off. But it turns out that their server was
> rejecting my dhcpcd's request for the old IP because it had given it to
> someone else. So I had erase the cache (Release) and restart dhcpcd (renew).

	Then something was wrong with your configuration (maybe you were
running "pump", an abomination and plague from RedHat that they finally
killed off as a bad mistake made worse by efforts to fix it).  You request
an address that is allocated somewhere else and the dhcp server will send
you a NACK telling you NO.  You then have to request a new address.  It works
very well and works with Comcast (though they haven't changed my IP in
over 6 months).

	My experience with the tech was when the guy came to the house with
the cable modem (which I purchased rather than leased) and walked down into
my basement and came face to face with my rack in my NOC...  I told him he was
connecting to the mini tower on the top of the rack on the left.  He asked,
"What does it run, Linux?"  I said "Correct."  He said "I don't think we
support Linux."  My reply was "Good.  I support Linux.  You support giving
me a network connection.  Just call these numbers (the MAC addresses) in."
He did and was amaze when it all simply poped up and worked perfect, first
shot, when I typed the ifup command.  Repeat a second time a few months
later at my son's digs.

> > I think my problem is because I have a bad Cable connection, that is why it
> > is not picking up the dhcp.  Or it may be the cable modem itself, shrug, I
> > have different machines, each one gets a different response.  I did have to
> > dig up a old copy of win98 though, sigh.

> Yes you do. But you only have to do it once. You can even borrow a machine or
> a laptop for the exercise.

	Neither I nor my kids have had to resort that far.  And my son even
had their NOC call him back when he was reporting a routing problem and had
it diagnosed to a router that they had missed.

	Mike
-- 
 Michael H. Warfield    |  (770) 985-6132   |  mhw at WittsEnd.com
  /\/\|=mhw=|\/\/       |  (678) 463-0932   |  http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
  NIC whois:  MHW9      |  An optimist believes we live in the best of all
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