Even in 2025 dial-up internet connections are possible. This page details how one might configure their Debian installation to conduct a dial-up internet connection.
One package built-into Debian is "PPPd" which stands for "Point-to-Point-Protocol Daemon". Two commands in this package that are of particular interest to dial-up internet users are: pon and poff.
The syntax for these commands is as follows:
- pon provider_name
- poff provider_name
The details for a given provider (telephone number, modem, etc.) are configured using the pppconfig command.
Note: Your modem must be properly set up before you can use it for dialup. You may need to configure your kernel and/or the serial port connected to the modem.
pon and poff also control PPPoE links, which instead of dialing through a modem tend to either be carried over Cable or DSL(Digital Subscriber Line). This is often carried into your computer through Ethernet.
Other stuff
NetworkManager (in both Gnome and KDE) let you graphically control Dial-up connection.
With pppconfig(8) you can have "dial on demand", which means the modem will dial whenever you want to surf a page or send data to the Internet. In this case, you need to have 'pon' run before.
To automatically have pon run when the computer boots up, see /usr/share/doc/ppp/README.Debian.gz and interfaces(5).