[PLUG] AOL substitute

[AthlonRob]

On Wed, 24 Jul 2002 13:10:18 -0700
"Michael Montagne" <montagne at boora.com> wrote:

> I have a friend who clings to MS because she needs AOL.  The reason
> she needs it is because she wants to have internet access when she
> travels the country.  At home she uses DSL but on the road she can
> dial an 800 number and access the web.  At a reasonable price even.
> Are there any OSS soloutions to this this issue?  Netzero does not
> support Linux.

This isn't an answer to your question, but it may help nonetheless.

You have a few options dealing with AOL under Linux.

1)  There's Wine.  It lets you dial up and 2.5 (likely 3.0 as well)
might get web access, but there is no external TCP/IP connectivity (ie;
external apps can't use the AOL connections).

2)  There's PengAOL.  A google search should bring it up.  It allows an
AOL connection to be made within Linux to give you *just* Internet
access... no access to AOL-only things.  It dropped out of active
development almost a year ago, but should still work fine.

3)  There's Gamera, the AOL Net Appliance client.  It may not be legal
to use, but it is still an option.  It works with only dialup to give
you a nearly full-blown AOL client.  I couldn't get it to use my modem
when I was in Mandrake oh-so-long-ago... but I didn't try very hard.  If
it helps, the Net Appliance itself uses a Conexant modem, so if the
Conexant kernel modules work funky (like only on a wierd com port) you
may need to do some symlinking in /dev  :-)

Hope this helps.

Rob