What is your system like. What I mean is it a Petuim 2 or 3 or higher? Because
the newer version of Ubuntu has drivers for some dial ups modems. The older
version you have is very little support for dial up. However, when I get home
I'll see what can be done for it.

Why r u not trying the latest version of Ubuntu. It
might be not present in older version and updated in
latest kernel.

The PC I bought is a Pentium 4, 2.6 with 40gb HDD and 256mb ram. I
didn't realise when I bid on this box (Ebay)that it would have an old
version of Ubuntu but its interesting that you think the latest
version may have suitable modem drivers. Mind you the thought of
changing the operating system scares me, its why I bought a system
with it already installed. I tried a few times to install Windows on
my other computer and I always had trouble, I just don't have the
geek genes I guess

Your system will be fine installing Ubuntu 7.10. You can do it in two ways. One
go to http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu and DL the ISO and once down loaded, burn
the file as ISO data format. Or you can go to your mom and pa computer store and
ask for a free copy of it. Even Best Buy Geek Squad should have free copies for
free too. Installing will take about an hour or more. It is going to have a crap
load of up dates to go through. Or you can wait till about the end of April for
the new version of Ubuntu to come out. Ubie is very easy to use and will take
some time to get use to. Remember it is not windows at all. Yet, very stable and
you are safer to surf the web than windows ever will be. If you like to stay at
it. I can give you most helpful links to get any new person to Ubie with 4 brain
cells to learn it very easy.

I bought a live CD for Ubuntu 7.10 recently.
Frankly I'm having a pretty good panic attack just thinking of
installing an operating system I've been toying with for two whole
hours.......... AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!
I mean I tried installing windows maybe 4 times and got it wrong
every time and this was after I'd been messing with that OS for maybe
4 years.........
OK so Ubuntu 7.10 is the only way to go now, sigh, I need a drink....
Links you say?, OK do you have a link to a site that is called
Installing Ubuntu 7.10 for totally clueless Ubuntu virgins?

This may be heresy, but if Greg only has dialup, Ubuntu may be the
wrong OS for him. I'm thinking of the time it is going to take trying
to download all of the updates. He may need to turn off the Update
Manager and learn to live with whatever version(s) of the various
applications that came on his install disk.

It's actually less of a hassle with Ubuntu than it is with Windows
Update. I've done both via dial-up. Ubuntu's update manager seems to
find all the updates in one pass - Windows Update wants you to reboot
a few times and produces a new list of updates with each reboot. Much
more manual intervention with Windows.

Windows or Ubuntu, it's many hours to load all the updates. But
Ubuntu needs less baby sitting.

Sounds like a nice machine.

I've installed Ubuntu 7.10 on two different machines with external
dial-up modems - the installation recognized the modem and installed
the right drivers both times. Both machines are older / slower than
yours (but with more RAM).

There were some minor issues - which may or may not surface with your
hardware and ISP.

That sounds encouraging, if 7.10 worked for your external dial up
modems then it may work for mine :)
Tell me something please, when you connect new hardware to a Linux
system (like my external modem)should it say something like "found
new hardware", then offer driver options like windows???
When I connected this modem to Ubuntu 5.04 it never said anything
which I thought was odd, even if it didn't have a driver to run the
modem.

No just go into network settings and activate the modem.

If you're starting a fresh install of 7.10, be sure the external modem
is connected and powered on before you start the install. The
installer should detect the modem, load the drivers, and mark the
dial-up connection as the default route to the Internet.

You will manually configure the connection afterwards: adding your ISP
dial-in number, your user ID and password, and setting an option or two.

Once that's done, Ubuntu will try to connect during boot, even before
you log in to the desktop.

Ian's advice is correct if you are adding an external modem to an
existing configuration - which I haven't tried. Might work on your
5.04 installation.

By the way (almost an afterthought): I'm assuming a serial port
external modem, not a USB external modem. I have no idea if Ubuntu
suppports USB external modems.