LYNX-DEV Packet Drivers and Proxies (was a no information subject)

[David Woolley]

> I downloaded the software from the internet and (lynx_386.zip) and configured 
> the wattcp.cfg with the appropriate ip settings but the program is giving me 
> the 
> error message no packet driver found.
> 
> I'm running it from a workstation installed with windows95 running the 
> program 
> from the MS-DOS prompt. The Local Network is a TCP/IP Ethernet network.

If you want to use Lynx over the existing ethernet card and still use it
for other network functions, you should head straight for the newsgroup
comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc.  You are in a difficult area, which since the
introduction of Winsock, has probably not had much development done.

Under win 3.1, this was possible provided that you used no TCP/IP from
Windows.  You needed an adaptor from packet driver to or from an acceptable
driver interface for your Windows (odipkt was commonly used) and winpkt to
give safe access to windows.  It was just about possible to use TCP/IP
software, but the tool for doing this, pktmux, came with a warning that
it was not entirely safe (it violates the protocol layering).

These may still work under Win 95, but I don't know.  There is little 
incentive to develop adaptations for Win 95, but I haven't following this
area, so you should check the above newsgroup.

Your safest solutions are probably to install a second network card, purely
for packet driver use, or, if you don't need other network support when
running Lynx, to run it in the DOS games mode of Win 95.

Note that there is a native Win32 implementation of Lynx.  I have 
assumed that you are aware of this and have not used it because of some
problem with screen readers.  If not, you should use this, as it uses
Winsock and will therefore coexist with Win 95's networking.

> 
> Another important question is; from where can I configure the proxies on the 
> Lynx browser.

This is explained in the configuration file.