🚀 go-pugleaf

In message <ant012042868S5$W@mozyat.demon.co.uk>
          MoZes <MoZes@digicron.SPAMKILL.com> wrote:

: In article <ant312244b49XL#k@pharpech.demon.co.uk>, Dave Roberts
: <URL:mailto:Dave@pharpech.demon.co.uk> wrote:

: > > No, don't bother with SLIP - kep with PPP.

: > Hey, what have you got against SLIP? 

: Hehe.  I've got nothing *against* it.. I was actually thinking of

I have.

: using it myself, since I wanted to see what the difference was.
: I meant, above, that changing to PPP isn't going to sort his problems
: (well, its very unlikely to) - hence, there's no point.

Given PPP's better error handling and link negotiation, it might well.

: >CSLIP is actually faster than PPP and it
: > is only the fact that Ant botched the Demon config file that SLIP doesn't
: > work. I'm using it happily here however with minor tinkering :).

: Why have most places phased SLIP out then?

: If you think SLIP is better, then I'll definatly give it another try,
: because, as you say, Demon's config doesn't work with SLIP - so I was
: unable to use it.  I'll go and write a new script for SLIP, I think, and
: see what's what.

: What is the basic difference between the two, apart from the
: protocols.. and is ANT's SLIP driver better (less buggier) that their
: PPP one?

SLIP is essentially trivial.  It is the Serial Line Internet Protocol. 
Essentiall all you do is escape a couple of characters, and send the packet
down the link.  IIRC, that's it.  No control options, and you're stuck with
IP.

PPP is a *much* more complex protocol (RFC somethingorother; I forget which),
which isn't limited to just IP.  PPP has a frame type equvalent, meaning that
you can (if you're sufficiently deranged) send IPX or NetBEUI/BIOS packets
over it; this can be useful in certain circumstances.

PPP also has line quality negotiation options, can vary its MTU, and can send
such useful information as the IP addresses of each end and netmasks and such
like.  It can also discard packets at the link-layer; something which I don't
believe SLIP capable of, although I could be wrong.

In short, PPP is better; with Van Jacobsen (sp?) compression, it can offer
better throughput than CSLIP, and is almost certainly better at handling
interactive data than SLIP.

Because PPP is a more complex protocol, implementations are often buggy. 
IIRC, Ascend's PPP code (the modems that Demon amongst others use) is broken
in a number of interesting ways (or was, at least), none of which should
affect the user unless he/she/it is using an implementation of it which
interacts badly with it.  We discovered this whilst writing TermiteIP's PPP
driver (not that I did much more than help debug it...).

In short: use PPP, it's better.  I'm sure someone'll disagree with at least
some of the points I've made here; it has been a while since I looked at PPP.

-- 
Dickon Hood

I've now managed to find my .signature file, normal service
will be resumed when Connex South Central get their act together.
We apologise for the inconvenience in the mean time.