PPP and Ascend Pipeline routers

[Greg Neumann]

I've been using Windows too long at work!
Genera outlind:
Mother who has never used a GUI computer wants on the internet.
Through work, I was able to get a pretty good deal w/ our provider.
I DON'T want to be playing the "virus of the week / spyware of the day" 
game over the phone every other day, so she's using KDE on Slackware 10. 
Yeah, I know Gnome is good, but my experience w/ KDE is that it's a bit 
less processor intensive, and this is an older machine.
I dial up the provider and get dumped into an ascend command prompt 
until KPPP times out. NOTHING I've been able to do changed that.
I tried "ppp" at the "ascend%" prompt, "protocol not supported". This 
does NOT happen in Windows. I had this same problem about seven years, 
one server and two router/firewalls ago. I *gasp!* trashed the notes w/ 
the old (486!) server about 4 years ago.  I've found two refernced on 
Google, exactly stating my problem, but no answers, past "run KPPP" or 
"don't have this problem".
The Ascend router is obviously looking/waiting for something, but what??
I've looked at the logs, and nothing helpful ... all is normal except 
the ppp login never happens. Like the two computers looking at each 
other waiting for the other to start something, getting bored and 
hanging up.
$%^#!!! I used to know this stuff! :-( Any ideas?
thanks,
Greg Neumann
-brainnumbed by enforced windows use.