ATT&Yahoo Internet Support Linux woes

I managed to get 'AT&T Yahoo Internet DSL Service' on linux but with great difficulty. They require MS Windows products for easy installation. I said to someone I'd help them get internet access with his old computers, and it took a while, but here is the story.

AT&T website does show that MS windows 2000, XP etc is required. They don't even listen to their customers or even respect their knowledge of computers. The companies should make sure their registration forms are correctly programmed to W3C standards and that it works in ALL web browsers. But overall once the service is running it is a very good UPTIME service eventually and is a good price. Support did say they are working on a Linux solution which is a nice thought :) Whether that was true or not is another story.

First I inspected the machines,

one is a Gateway machine
Intel PentiumIII,
128mb ram

another is IBM
PentiumIII
128mb of ram.

After installing various Linux distributions (Kubuntu, SUSE, Ubuntu) trying to finding which machine has the most supported hardware, we was happy with Ubuntu 6.10 alternative installation on the IBM. To get ATT & Yahoo Internet to work. You need a fully installed MS Windows product period.

After connecting the devices, I checked the CD I was given and there was a manual setup instructions. I eventually found out that their registration forms do not render properly in Firefox. (https://sbcreg.sbcglobal.net) . Managed to press "I Agree" after switching fullscreen mode in firefox soo many times. Then there was a Javascript error, so I called up support. They said they only support Microsoft (even though they supply support for Apple Macs).

Support said to speak to your Linux distributor and I declined to accept that answer and
I asked who made the registration form software, they declined to reveal the company's name
They couldn't even switch on Internet access on their end, "WHAT!? I need MS Windows just to get Internet Service!?"

I had to get a lift home to pick up my machine and take it over to where there DSL modem is (thankfully it was around a BLOCK away). I tried my machine with IE6 on openSUSE, it refused to find the forms which was an interesting problem. The address was correct I tried both https://sbcreg.sbcglobal.net/DSLRegWeb/ and https://sbcreg.sbcglobal.net/. My IE6 installed on openSUSE 10.2 is provided by IE4Linux.

Finally the solution was to drive back to my home and to take my wife's machine out(XP installed) and use the SETUP.EXE file provided on the "ATT&Yahoo Internet Service Installation CD". Left a note for my wife to not be alarmed, we wasn't robbed :P The installation finally worked after it attempted to installed to software that it required. Replugged in the OLD IBM machine with Ubuntu and heypresto!!

You shouldn't have to worry if you move house, the registration form is required to enable the modem to have Internet access. Me and my wife has "ATT Yahoo Internet" and we moved and thankfully it stilled worked :) Touch wood things may get better.

VMWare would be the BEST solution next time. Just so happens I've got Ubuntu installed on my openSUSE machine :) I plan on making sure I've a plain installation of XP as well for just such stupid moments.

Hope this helps for new Linux users trying to get Internet Service with "AT&T & Yahoo partnered with SBCGlobal.net".