questions related to PPP and GNOME

[Xun Cheng <xun cs ucsb edu>]

Could someone help me answer the following two questions?
1. How can I stop my redhat linux box from dialing 
automatically while booting? I want to dial and establish
PPP connection later at my request.

2. I'm using gnome. While my ppp connection is up, gnome(panel
and applets) works fine (I start gnome-session while PPP is up).
But after I disconnect, gnome seems no longer work and
any applets related changes will bring down the panel. How 
can I fix this? Can I use gnome-session (or panel) no matter
what my ppp connection state is? The following are my /etc/hosts
while I'm online and offline. BTW, what will the dialer_applet do to
connect and disconnect? Are they the same as what my boot procedure
does?

===offline
127.0.0.1       localhost               phoenux
10.0.0.1        phoenux.deco.com

===online
127.0.0.1       localhost               phoenux
10.0.0.1        phoenux.deco.com
128.xxx.xxx.xxx xxx.xxx.xxx.edu
===

thanks
xun