> In message <wkr96mrbcn.fsf@idris.laine.org>, Laine Stump writes:
> >I've been successful at connecting to Earthlink
> 
"Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@research.att.com> writes:
> The issue -- apart from help desk questions -- is often the specialized 
> software needed for sign-up and customer option selection.

Hmmm, when I signed up that wasn't a problem, but that was over 3
years ago, when you actually talked to a *human being* to sign
up. I've been fortunate to never need help desk support from them, so
I don't have any useful info about that either.

When dealing with RCN (who *has* had problems I had to call about), my
method has always been to talk to them about the problem first, then
try the same thing with a Windows box if NetBSD freaked them out - it
usually didn't (they just thought it was "another one of those Linux
things" :-P)

If you don't have a Windows box around for the odd occasion, and/or
don't like being your own tech support, maybe the thing to do is look
through the FreeBSD Gallery:

        http://www.freebsd.org/gallery/gallery.html

for ISPs that use FreeBSD. Hopefully they would be supportive of
customers running *BSD, too.