[olug] I'm afraid this is a really dumb question

[Irv Cobb]

I'm running Mandrake 9 with a small LAN and dial-up internet access. 
During the install process, or from the Mandrake Control Center, the 
network setup wizard insists on being provided with a gateway. By 
hit-or-miss, I have found that the only way I can make the dial-up work 
is to put "/dev/modem" as the gateway. Everything works fine, except 
that the LAN doesn't work unless the system has dialed up and is on the 
'net. I (kind of) understand why it behaves this way, but I don't know 
how to fix it. Can anyone help?

Irv