My family is a two Operating System family… I use Windows XP & he uses Linux. With this said, my husband recently built a Linux box for his father and went to set it up for him.

I, in turn, called up Verizon to set up DSL for him. I specifically asked Verizon if they had support for Linux users and they said Yes… So I proceeded.

The DSL modem arrived, with a CD and some papers explaining how to setup. However, as usual, it was all for Windows machines. We contacted Verizon, went through the automated answerer, which gave the options for Windows users, Mac users, or Other OS’s. We were slightly amused that when you get support for Other OS’s, they haven’t a clue what Linux is. Wonder what they mean by Other OS’s?

Anyway, I digress….

It was clear that we had to figure out how to hook up our own modem to the Linux box. I found several things on the Internet to help, but one helped the most… Ben’s Drivel was a tremendous help. Of course we found a few differences… so I am going to list the steps here.

1. Connect your DSL modem and turn it on. For simplicities sake, plug your computer directly into modem.

2. Open Firefox and type in 192.168.1.1 on the location bar.

3. The user name and password are username/password. Be sure to change this to something else once you log in.

4. (Note: At this point, we did not have a username or password. We had call Verizon only to find out that once you use the CD, it will generate the user name and password. I had to RE-EXPLAIN to them the we are hooking up a Linux box… Finally, they put me on hold and then generated a user name and password to use.) So, if you do not have a user name and password, contact Verizon and have them give you one.

5. Wait for the network to be detected, and then click on the green text “connected” in the left-hand pane.

6. Ben’s Drival says “Under broadband connection, click add.” However, we couldn’t find an “add” button or link. Instead, we saw Verizon listed with a Edit link. So, we clicked Edit and added our Verizon user name and password.

7. In Ben’s Drival he also says the following: “Click apply, and then back at the broadband connection screen, disconnect the “Auto registration” connection and then connect the new one you just made. Also, don’t forget to make it default.” Of course for us, we didn’t have any default to mark.. Also, we did not see anything for “Auto Registration.” This could be due to a difference in programs used or the distro of Linux used. We connected using the one we previously edited.

8. Once its connected, open a new browser window and browse to this address: http://192.168.1.1/verizon/redirect.htm …

9. Once the page is loaded, click disable.

10. Make sure this process worked by browsing to any web page.

11. Restart the modem to make sure everything is saved.

Perhaps one day Verizon will simplify this set up for Linux users. Until then, I hope this helps someone, just as Ben’s Drival helped us.

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