slackware 8.0 and ppp

[Adam Myrow]

It depends.  If you use the Speakup boot disk that comes with Slackware
8.0, and install its kernel, PPP probably won't work out of the box.  This
is because whoever compiled it compiled it for SMP (symmetric
multiprocessing) when all the modules are for single-processor machines.
This causes a lot of trouble.  There are a number of solutions.

1: Build a new kernel.  The advantage here is you can clean out the
default modules and install just the ones you need.  You can also get rid
of other junk and possibly add support for that odd card or two.
2: replace the modules with those for 2.2.19 kernels with SMP support.
They are provided on the Contrib CD.  You would copy the modules from the
CD over the existing ones for 2.2.19.  The advantage of this method is you
don't have to rebuild a kernel or replace it.

3: get the modified Speakup boot disk from ftp.linux-speakup.org.  You
would then copy its vmlinuz over your existing one and if you use Lilo,
rerun it by simply typing "lilo."  The advantage of this is that you don't
have to replace a whole bunch of files.  I suspect that they will have
this little issue fixed in the next Slackware release.

I chose initially to install the SMP modules, then I downloaded the latest
kernel source once I was online and rebuilt.  I think rebuilding is a good
thing in the long run as you can really cut your boot time since the
kernel isn't looking for non-existent hardware plus, it makes your
existing hardware work more reliably.  Hope this information helps.