ppp question maybe on-topic

[mike <mike redtux demon co uk>]

I have a curious problem which I am wondering ay be kppp or mandrake 7
related.

Following a hard disk failure I installed mandrake 7 in place of a much
modified Redhat 6.1. Since then  cannot get my ppp scripts to work they are
basically as in the ppp howto and worked in RH6.2 (no kde)

The modem starts to dial and then dies after about five seconds the final
message being "serial line is looped back".

I am starting to  suspect that it may be a mandrake/kppp issue because if I
set up ppp in netcfg (ifup) it works and kppp works as well.

Unfortunately I dont really want to continue using either of these methods
so has anyone ether came across this problem or have any ideas.

In addition to andrake 7 I am using gnome 1.1.8, gtk/gdk1.2.7 ppp-2.3.11
and kernel 2.3.99pre5 (it doesnt work with the stock kernel loaded either)

The on;l other error message I get is to do with var/log/messages saying no
ppp loaded in the kernel which is fairly ipossible as
1. It is compiled straight in 
2. ifup or kppp would not work either