The Linux Modem Problem? 106
muonman asks: "There is a business in town which refurbishes old computers and distributes them to kids, roughly at cost. Part of this cost is a $5 license for Windows 98 (they do use OpenOffice, tho). I have outlined to them the benefits of migrating to Linux, but the showstopper is modems, which most of their customers require. They buy in bulk at $4 each, with unpredictable chipsets. I can find reliable(?) drivers for Smartlinks, but cant buy them for less than $6 each, and I hate to recommend the switch in suppliers without more info. I haven't had luck getting license info from linuxant for using Conexants. It seems there has been no activity on the linmodem front for some time. Any wisdom from the Slashdot crowd?"
Not much help, but... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.leenooks.com/ [leenooks.com]
Try Free Geek (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Try Free Geek (Score:3, Informative)
They don't get new modems. Actually, most machines they take in are recycled (aka destroyed) rather than refurbished. They just take the good modems they get. This is always an option, but then you have to be prepared to throw away some machines.
linmodems.org (Score:4, Informative)
The main site is full of information to help identify and get working "windows" modems under Linux. The list still seems to be active. Before ADSL arrived in my corner of the world I was dependant on them to get connected via inbuilt modems. I can't fault the helpfulness of the people on the list.
It doesn't matter if the modem cards you're getting are unpredictable provided that you know that it's one of a small subset and you know how to get each one (or most of them) to work. When I was last looking at this (over a year ago - but I guess that the kit you're seeing isn't new) the most manufacturer that modems identified themselves as was Agere/Lucent, for which there are various drivers around.
Some modems will probably just never get Linux drivers - the 3com 3c556 and relatives are examples of that. See:
http://zurich.ai.mit.edu/pipermail/omnibook/2002-
My Experience (Score:3, Informative)
Drivers are available at http://www.physcip.uni-stuttgart.de/heby/ltmodem/ [uni-stuttgart.de]
Maybe these are just older modems and you can't buy them anymore-- but if this type of modem is still available maybe you can get them for cheaper.
Re:Not much help, but... (Score:3, Informative)
http://start.at/modem [start.at]
Re:Intel 536EP/537EP & Ambient MD3200/MD563X/M (Score:3, Informative)
My advice : try to find actual, hardware modems somewhere. A real 33600 is better than a 56K winmodem.
In the particular case of the CLMD5620DT, it used to work sometimes with 2.2 kernels (the version I released, with AT commands, is 0.3.0-gg), I made a quick port to 2.4 (you may find it as version 0.4.0) and I have no idea if it works with 2.6 kernels. I don't even have the modem anymore
Re:5$ for windows -- since when? (Score:2, Informative)