Software
There is two types of software you need to connect the Mac to the internet. The first type of software is used by the Mac to communicate with your Internet Service Provider's (ISP) server, this is programs like FreePPP or InterSLIP along with the Mac's networking software, and the second type of programs is those that let your Mac talk the langauge of the internet, usually a control pannel called TCP/IP or MacTCP.
The Mac's own networking
The Mac has networking built into the operating system, and people with System 7.5 or later (and an '030 or better chip) get the choice of using either classic networking or Open Transport (OT) networking, so what is the diffference? At it's simplest level OT networking is a faster form of networking that works best with PowerPC Macs. If you have a PowerPC Mac you are better off using this type of networking, as it is noticably faster, on the other hand it is not always compatable with older software.
Just a cutonary note for people using OT. I noticed that there is no way for users to add extra modem configurations into OT. If you are using a modem not supported by OT already, you need to get the modem manufacturer to write a new script for the modem so that OT can support it, not always an option.
PPP/SLIP
PPP and SLIP are two different protocols that allow networking of computers over modems. The type of protocol you use is dependant upon your ISP, but the most common is PPP as it is generally considered superiour to SLIP.
If you get a choice by your ISP about which type of protocol to use, for the Mac it is better to use PPP as the Mac programs to use this protocol are more advanced then the one(?) to use SLIP. I only know of the control pannel InterSlip that alows connection by Slip.
There are three main ways to connect a Mac computer via PPP. They are MacPPP, FreePPP and OT/PPP.
MacPPP and FreePPP are based on the same original code, except that MacPPP was origianally modified by Apple, and they have not done any major updates to it since they started writting OT, making FreePPP far and away supierior to MacPPP, and since it is a free download from the internet, it sould be used in place of MacPPP in most cases, unless of course you have problems with it.
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