Can only dial-up as root.

[marty88]

I have a new installation of Sarge.
What strikes me as strange, so far, is that I have problems dialling to my ISP.
I have tried the "applications", "system tools", "networking" route, which requires the root password, and seems to be unreliable.
Now I use wvdial from a root prompt, which works, but surely there must be some way of accessing a dial-up connection without being su?
I've used a few other distros recently, and none of them require knowledge of the root password to access email or the like.
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I can't find a solution anywhere else.
Thanks.

(PS for what it's worth, it's an external modem, D-Link DFM-562E configured on /dev/ttyS0, on an ASUS A7N266-VM motherboard. It works perfectly using the wvdial option, so I cannot think of any other system info that would be useful).

/etc/wvdial.conf

[Dialer Defaults]
Phone = xxxxxxx
Username = xxxxxxxxxx
Password = xxxxxx
New PPPD = yes
Modem = /dev/ttyS0
Baud = 115200
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0L3
ISDN = 0
Modem Type = Analog Modem
Stupid mode = 0
#[Dialer ppp0] =
#Init2 = ATL1
#Stupid mode = 1
#Init1 = ATZ
#Dial Command = ATDT
#Phone = xxxxxxxx
#Username = xxxxxxxxx
#Password = xxxxxxx
#[Dialer NIL] =
#Init2 = ATM0
#Password = xxxxxxx
#Stupid mode = 0
#Init1 = ATZ
#Phone = xxxxxxxx
#Username = xxxxxxx

[Dialer ppp0]
Init2 = ATL-1L1
Stupid mode = 1
Init1 = ATZ
Dial Command = ATDT
Phone = xxxxxxx
Username = xxxxxxxx
Password = xxxxxxx

[dawgie]

As root, run pppconf.
Choose "change a connection" select which connection you want to change. Then choose "Advanced" ---> "add user" after you finsh adding the users, make sure that you go "back to previous menu" --> "save changes" before you exit.

[marty88]

Thank you Dawgie. Easy when you know how!
Hopefully, to clarify for anyone else reading this, I actually had to run pppconfig, but that was easy to work out. Not sure if I missed that bit in the installation part somehow
Anyway, problem solved.
Thanks once more.