>1. build the ancient mouse-pppoe package.  Ignore the decoy ``roaring
>    penguin'' pppoe package which will install a pile of penguin shit
>    that doesn't work and a pile of enthusiastic, chatty, arrogant
>    documentation (cough).

Huh, I installed rp-pppoe a couple years back and it worked just fine 
and took me under a minute to set up from start to finish. The 
pppoe.conf file is quite self-explanatory, and the adsl-start/stop 
(1) makes sense, (2) is just like the ppp-up/down that I was used to 
for many years (Bill S/Paul G ppp setup scripts), and (3) is a whole 
lot nicer than the procedure you describe below. The biggest stump to 
me at that time was realizing that I needed to use chap-secrets 
instead of pap-secrets for that particular ISP.

Just my thoughts,
Mike


>2. create an /etc/ppp/pap-secrets with your ISP username and password
>
>3. bring up the interface with no IP address
>
>    ifconfig tlp0 up
>
>4. start mouse-pppoe specifying your username as the second parameter
>
>    mouse-pppoe tlp0 vrsq45dz
>
>4a. options files in /etc/ppp aren't used. (? i think)
>
>5. if you want it to actually work, start mouse-pppoe from within a
>    shell script that does while true; mouse-pppoe ...; done
>
>6. and use a super-complicated script to kill it if the link goes down.
>
>7. mouse-pppoe sets the mtu at 1400 for no particularly good reason,
>    so adjust your NAT mssclamp accordingly.

-- 
Bikers don't *DO* taglines.