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Communications Software Hardware Linux

Modem Success Stories With Linux? 127

Posted by timothy from the external-and-pcmcia-modems-work-well dept.
lasindi writes "Whenever I install Linux, I have trouble with the modem (unfortunately I'm stuck on dial-up). On the first installation, I found out it was a Winmodem and when I tried the solutions and drivers offered by linmodems.org, it still wouldn't work. I finally got an Intel PCI modem, but Intel only provides drivers that work on the 2.4 kernel. I have also have a Conexant modem lying around, but I found out that the only drivers that work for it are provided by Linuxant. These drivers, however, cost money (unless you want to crawl along at 14.4 Kbps for free) and are closed-source. I've found that, although I have five modems, I can't run any of them at full speed under the 2.6 kernel. I would like to know how common such problems are and how Slashdotters have gotten around them."
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Modem Success Stories With Linux? More

Modem Success Stories With Linux?

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  • External modems or pay for the linuxant drivers (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bronster ( 13157 ) <slashdot@brong.net> on Sunday June 20, 2004 @10:37PM (#9480971) Homepage
    For my laptop, the linuxant drivers cost hardly anything compared to the price of the machine (certainly cheaper than a card modem), so I ponied up.

    For a desktop box - well, apart from the fact that I use a modem about never these days, it's always broadband of some sort - what I _used_ to do was buy a decent quality external modem and not have all the problems that plague cheap crap.

  • you could try... (Score:4, Informative)

    by augros ( 513862 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @10:41PM (#9480989)
    I used to use a serial modem. That should make the driver not as much of a problem... I think.

    • Re:you could try... (Score:5, Informative)

      by TiggsPanther ( 611974 ) <tiggs@m-vCURIEoid.co.uk minus physicist> on Monday June 21, 2004 @04:21AM (#9482425) Journal

      I second the above.
      Back when I started experimenting with Linux I spent quite a bit of time dual-booting. (Didn't have the second PC back then...) The irritating thing was that my (internal) modem was a Winmodem. So I could get online easily in Windows, and not at all in linux. At first this was not a problem.

      After a while (year 2000, I think) I got fed up of not being able to troubleshoot or do email when in Linux. And having to reboot into Windows to search online for a solution to a Linux problem was a total pain. At that point I decided that it was worth the cost to get an external modem. (U.S. Robotics. FaxModem I think)
      It worked. I mean literally it just worked. It served me faithfully until I got broadband, and then got bequeathed to a colelague of my dad's who needed a modem for dialup. And as far as I know it's still working.

      Plus bear in mind that if you've got a serial port, there a good chance nothing else is using it these days.

      Tiggs
      • Plus bear in mind that if you've got a serial port, there a good chance nothing else is using it these days.

        Nothing is more wrong for me. On my serial ports I have :
        • A cable to connect ti calcs
        • A multitech 28.8 modem to do fax+minitel
        • An IR receiver (went with a pinnacl PCTV)
        • A dongle for a video capture SDK
        • A null-modem cable to connect to some servers

        I also used to have a serial mouse, but I replaced it with an USB one to save ports.

    • Re:you could try... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Carnildo ( 712617 ) on Monday June 21, 2004 @04:56PM (#9488591) Homepage Journal
      My solution was to use a Hayes-compatible ISA modem. Of course, since my computer didn't have an ISA slot, this meant that I needed an older computer to run the modem, and a cable to network the two computers together.
  • I'm not going to tell you that you SHOULD get high-speed Internet access, perhaps it's not what you want or need, however, most Linux users are on some type of high-speed connection, and so you might find support for dialup in Linux to be quite lacking. I know I did several years ago, and this was still when a lot of people used dialup.

    • Re:well.. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by drkich ( 305460 )
      And of course this is no slam upon you, however this is no answer. I have attempted many times to get my modem running, with no success. I eventually gave up and went back to Windows. I have since got a high-speed connection, but I just have not bothered going back.

    • Re:well.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by primal39 ( 409681 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @11:33PM (#9481301)
      "I'm not going to tell you that you SHOULD get high-speed Internet access"

      I'm not going to tell him that either, because I read the post and he said he's "stuck on dial-up." This most likely means that he probably lives in a location very akin to mine, i.e. where the only broadband solution available is satellite, which has a very hefty initial outlay (last I checked it was in the $600 range)

      So I sympathize with the poster as to his modem woes, up until quite recently achieving any speeds over 28.8 was impossible for me, simply due to line quality.

      As for a solution? I suggest the same solution I use, namely to acquire an external modem (as others above have already suggested).

      I highly recommend that said external modem should support v.92, as the speed gain is quite noticeable when loading pages.
      Of course, if we could only get an ISP to offer accelerated dialup software that worked under linux....
      • Some of the dial-up accelerators use a combination web proxy and a radius implementation, snoop a windows client and reverse engineer what squid needs to tell the accelerator, or even better, offer your services to write a F/OSS implementation of their client, assuming the company will release the needed APIs.
        • some isp's accelerators don't need anything from the client aside from the ability to use a http proxy.

          for example, the gsm operators have such accelerators around here for usage when using gprs, they re-encode jpg's with lower quality for example.

      • Besides, satellite service often only works in tandem with dialup anyway--you use dialup for your uplink and satellite for your downlink, and you still have to pay for dialup access. How much does that suck?

        As mentioned by others a decent internal modem is just as good as an external modem. The other advantage a real modem has over crappy windmodems is that you get to offload all the processing to the modem. After all, all that realtime DSP stuff is what the modem is supposed to be doing anyway. Even

  • External Modems (Score:5, Insightful)

    by duffbeer703 ( 177751 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @10:46PM (#9481023)
    Sell for about $15 on ebay. Buy one and stop worrying about stupid stuff like this.

    • Re:External Modems (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Sunday June 20, 2004 @10:52PM (#9481058) Homepage
      I agree. Get yourself a good, external, SERIAL modem. They all run the same AT commandset so there are no drivers. It should work fine. I wouldn't fuss with internal modems and PCI modems and winmodems and USB modems and all that stuff when you could get a fine modem from eBay or a local used computer shop for cheap and end all your headaches.

      • Re:External Modems (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 20, 2004 @11:15PM (#9481197)
        A good, real hardware PCI modem is fine -- it is just as simple as an external modem; you just plug it in the slot, boot, and all of a sudden there is a modem on /dev/ttyS4. I recommend the Zoom 56k PCI internal, it costs $80 at Fry's. I have bought and used (for my work, setting up remote servers that dial into a server for updates) about 5 of these in the last few months, every single one worked perfectly. And they support vgetty, so you can do cool things like vocp.sourceforge.net.
        • That's true. It's been a while since I had to deal with a true PCI modem. Still, I've always prefered the external ones, but that's just me.

        • A good, real hardware PCI modem is fine -- it is just as simple as an external modem; you just plug it in the slot, boot, and all of a sudden there is a modem on /dev/ttyS4.

          Quite possibly true. I haven't had an internal modem since a US Robotics 14k4, a long time ago.

          I long ago switched to a Kortex K56Flex external modem on the serial port. Never had any problem with it; it worked fine straight away, and is still going strong.

          Sometimes, dialing up can fail, and I see a message like "blacklisted". The

      • Couldn't agree more, ran linux like this for over a year bofore getting cable. I got mine for $50 new, iirc at Fry's.

        I might be willing to sell it for cheap (still works like a champ), email me.
    • Yeah, an external (not USB though) modem would work, or if you have an ISA bus, an ISA modem (ISA doesn't have the bandwidth to do software modems). Or just look for "Hayes Compatible" on the box.

      • (ISA doesn't have the bandwidth to do software modems)

        What the hell are you talking about? The voice frames would be coming in/out at no more than 8kHz. A good ISA sound card takes up more ISA bandwidth.

        • Yes, you are ofcourse right. I don't know how that piece of information managed to drift into my brain and get stuck without any checking. Apologies for the disinformation.
    • Or find someone who has old computer parts or even computer fairs. I still have my old USR Sportster 33.6k FaxModem whenever my cable modem service goes out/has problems. No point of getting 56k modems since the phone lines and carrier around here really suck (up to 26400 only and 3 KB/sec.).

    • The thing that sucks is a lot of new computers (especially laptops) don't have serial ports these days.

      Half the reason of myself needing a laptop is for the serial console on various things.
  • I got me a new Sterling 56K modem just last week, and was pleasantly surprised to see that my mother had gotten me a Knoppix CD. The WTFL edition I believe, with the book Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye.

    I'm not quite sure what the problem is, since I'm just moving to Linux and I also would appreciate any help.

  • Just don't buy PCI (Score:5, Informative)

    by photon317 ( 208409 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @10:51PM (#9481054)
    A lot of internal modems are winmodem-style or something like it these days. Just get a good old external modem on a serial port. As long as it supports AT commands you're gtg in any OS that supports modems and serial ports in general. Or if you wanna get all high-tech about it, get a USB modem that does serial-over-USB and acts like a plain external modem on a serial port.

  • Connexant lies to kernel about liscence status (Score:3, Informative)

    by adamjaskie ( 310474 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @10:52PM (#9481057) Homepage

    Story Here [slashdot.org]

    Or did they change that yet?

  • external modem with dhcp (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dr_leviathan ( 653441 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @10:52PM (#9481065)

    CompUSA used to sell an external modem that would do the dialing for you and provide ethernet on your side (2 ethernet port hub built in that provided DHCP). You would just have to set up ethernet on your linux machine (easy, compared to setting up stupid winmodem crap) and then configure it via its internal web page.

    I can't remember the name, but it cost about $50 - $65 a year ago.

    The best thing about it was that it ran embedded linux on the inside, and was hackable. I couldn't find the article where I first heard about it, but I'll look a little harder and will post it if I find it.

    • Re:external modem with dhcp (Score:5, Informative)

      by dr_leviathan ( 653441 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @11:10PM (#9481171)
      It was an "Actiontec Dual-PC External Modem".

      Here's a link to the gadget info:

      http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteri a= 3314314

      Here's a link to the slashdot article where I learned about it:

      http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/01/0245 25 7&mode=thread&tid=106&tid=137&tid= 185

    • Something similar is to get a router with a serial interface and a serial modem. I'm using an Asante Friendlynet ($30.00 on ebay) and a 3COM/USR USB/Serial D/F/V external v.90, 5605 I think. (haven't priced one in awhile) Best thing is, when you get broadband, just switch over to the ethernet wan port and away you go.
    • A similar product is the 3com LANmodem. Does the same thing. A client of mine has one, really easily shares the internet connection between the 5 computers in her little business. But would also solve this problem as well... :)

  • But I have an external Sportster 28.8 that I've been using for, oh, 6 years now. It hooks up to a comm port and speaks ASCII. Granted, I need a comm driver that's just smart enough to do proper handshaking (and perferably hardware flow control) unless I wish to do a little soldering. But aside from that, ATZ, ATS0=55, ATDT5551010. It all works nicely and requires no drivers. Of course, I use {Commo} most of the time to talk to it, so this isn't terribly on topic either way.

  • Don't buy a cheap modem (Score:3, Informative)

    by menders ( 449045 ) <menders@gmaUMLAUTil.com minus punct> on Sunday June 20, 2004 @10:56PM (#9481084)
    Get the best [newegg.com].

  • Try any ISA modems? (Score:4, Informative)

    by feidaykin ( 158035 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @11:02PM (#9481119) Journal
    This is assuming your motherboard even has ISA slots. I tell ya, kids these days, err, where was I? ;)

    Anyway, in the few short years I've been using Linux, all the distributions have come very far in detecting and using newer hardware. However, the general rule of thumb, especially for things like dial-up modems, is still the older the hardware is, the more likely it will be compatible.

    I'm stuck on dialup myself, and I use an old Creative Modem Blaster 56K. Purchased around... 98 or 99 I think.

    Before that it was my lovely US Robotics 28.8 DSVD (Digital Simultaneous Voice and Data! OHHH, AHHH!) modem. Heh. That sounded like a cool feature at the time, but it never really took off. And MAN that modem was HUGE. I'm talking over a foot. Really hard to cram it into my case. This modem also worked fine in various Linuxes.

    So yeah... To answer your question: Your modems are too new. Find older ones.

  • USR 5610B from Wal*Mart (Score:5, Informative)

    by msonic ( 95086 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @11:13PM (#9481190)
    This is a hardware modem, requires no drivers, I am using it on 2.6.6 now. Downside is it costs $60
    • Real modems always cost more. There is more hardware to them. Personally, I use an external USR V.Everything modem. There is nothing better. They are Not cheap.

      An interesting thing I found out though (when setting up an 8-modem fax bank,) is that Most modems suck at faxing. One of the best fax modems are apparently the MultiTech's, but they suck at data! Sometimes, you just can't win. :-)
      • Real modems always cost more. There is more hardware to them. Personally, I use an external USR V.Everything modem. There is nothing better. They are Not cheap.

        Is that so? I was under the impression that all the real work of compression and modulation was being done by a single chip made by Rockwell.

        Please feel free to correct me if I'm blathering.

        Beefy

        • There is a lot more to a modem than the "compression and modulation", such as making sure that the signal that GETS to that chip is good quality, how the modem retrains (which is in the firmware.) etc. The v.everything uses a DSP to handle the grunt work, and the features and quality of that code has EVERYTHING to do with how good the modem is. External modems are basically dedicated purpose computers with their own power supply, case, switches, indicator lights... In addition, the V.Everything modem can fl
    • Froogle [google.com] roolz. I ordered my USR5610B from Eagle for about $50 with tax/shipping/etc, and it was backordered for about 3 weeks, but it did come eventually. Plugged and played, no drivers, no nuthin. Research vendors with care.

  • personal exp. (Score:4, Informative)

    by abrotman ( 323016 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @11:15PM (#9481200)
    My laptop has an internal modem and i use the slmodem driver and it works great(Its an IBM G40 laptop) running with a 2.6 kernel. I think for every PC(workstation), I've always used an ISA modem. I tink you've got 4 options:

    1 - buy an ISA modem(if possible)
    2 - Buy an external modem
    3 - http://www.usr.com/products/home/home-product.asp? sku=USR5610B .. i blieve this is a hardware PCI modem
    4 - Do your research on the drivers before you buy a winmodem .. many do work .. really .. they do

  • Lucent? (Score:3, Informative)

    by cymen ( 8178 ) <cymenvig.gmail@com> on Sunday June 20, 2004 @11:16PM (#9481205) Homepage
    http://www.physcip.uni-stuttgart.de/heby/ltmodem/

    I've had good luck with the above driver for the Lucent winmodem in my Dell laptop (Inspiron 4000). I recall using it with 2.6 kernels (back on broadband).

    CompGeeks.com has a used hardware modem for less than $14 and a Agere winmodem with Lucent chipset for less than $10. I'd double check it works though before buying the winmodem (by fcc id or chipset model).

    • I've been using Lucent chipset modems and they have been the easiest to use and work reliably. Just get the driver from the link in the parent's post, un-tar, run ./build_module, then ./ltinst2, then ./autoload, then dial-up and go. I've used this setup reliablily under Mandrake and Fedora/Red Hat for years ( since RH 6.2 ).

      I find that Redhat/Fedora make it the easiest for a dial-up user with the system-control-network package ( formerly called redhat-control-network ) which allows a normal user to bring u

  • You get what you pay for (Score:5, Informative)

    by hankaholic ( 32239 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @11:33PM (#9481306)
    I used to work tech support for a mid-sized ISP, and we used to take calls from unhappy Winmodem users constantly. No matter what your OS, don't waste your time with a Winmodem -- it's just not worth the time and hassle.

    You probably spent at least a few hundred dollars on your computer, perhaps much more. Chances are, you'll be spending some time online with it. For many people, web browsing is their computer's primary use, but they insist on using a $13-on-Pricewatch modem (usually the one installed by the manufacturer -- Gateway, this means you!) to dial up.

    Buy a US Robotics (or 3COM) modem, and spend at least $80 for it. Yes, I know that you can buy an HSP Micromodem for $8 on eBay, but as long as your computer can handle running IE (or Firefox, etc.) your modem is the single greatest influence on your dialup experience.

    This goes for any operating system. Linux users are often forced into such a choice by the fact that Winmodems are rarely supported, and never work well.

    Many here say "buy an external modem" -- initially, all modems were external, and plugged into a computer's serial port. This worked well, because serial ports are standard hardware, and no special drivers were required at all.

    Modern quality modems (such as an $80+ 3COM) have a built-in serial port -- picture a serial port with a modem plugged into it, all contained within an ISA or PCI card. This is why they work so well, as dedicated hardware does what it was meant to do, and has been doing well for years.

    Winmodems are like the bargain-basement "shared memory" video cards often shipped with home systems. Such video cards have no memory of their own, and consume system RAM for video memory. Similarly, software modems consume force the CPU to emulate an actual modem. While the CPU is a general-purpose computing device, it simply isn't a DSP, and isn't meant for signal processing. This means that it's less than efficient at processing signal data, and you'll notice the inefficiency in dropped connections.

    Anecdotally, I once convinced a friend at my ISP to disable the auto-disconnect feature for my account. I was connected through a 33.6k US Robotis modem for 29 days before a power outage interrupted the connection. Soon after, I switched to broadband, but every winmodem user who has ever complained to me about dropped connections while refusing to shell out money for a real modem still brings a smile to my face.

    I know I'm repeating myself here, but ANYONE USING DIALUP UNDER ANY OPERATING SYSTEM OWES IT TO THEMSELVES TO SPEND $80 OR MORE FOR A MODEM. And a PCI 3COM card (not a Winmodem -- again, be sure it's a hardware modem) will work fine under Linux. It'll show up as a serial port.

    (Why $80? Sure, you may find a hardware modem for $75, but $80 should be a high enough bar to weed out even the priciest of Winmodems.)
    • I can back him up on his 29 days story.

      I have a hardware 3com modem, have for a few years, and when I was on dialup my longest uptime record was 64 days or so. I'll find the screenshot someday ;)
    • Indeed. The worst part of a Winmodem is that it uses CPU for DSP and such, where a hardware modem does not. I built a K6-2/350 mhz based system 5-6 years back and cheaped out and bought a winmodem, not even knowing such things existed then... I had been BBSing for years, and never had a problem with the modem not being on COMx: by default. Anyway, even on my fast system, it ate up some CPU whenever I was online. Blew chunks.
    • Hey, I'll sell you a Winmodem for $80, be glad to! Why not look at the brand or the friggin specifications instead of just the price tag? Pretty much any Hayes-compatible external modem should work well, infinitely better than any Winmodem, and top-notch modems that last for years and years can be bought on e-bay for a lot less than $80.
      • Why not look at specs? Because those who know how to look at specs (ie, determine whether it's a hardware modem) aren't the ones who need to be told what to buy.

        My advice was for the general consumer that wants to be able to walk into CompUSA and find a modem that they'll be happy with, without having to pay extra for an external modem and without having to worry about not being able to easily return an item with which they're not happy.

        The average person probably doesn't want to know what a chipset or co

  • Modem router? (Score:3, Informative)

    by BillyBlaze ( 746775 ) <tomfelker@gmail.com> on Monday June 21, 2004 @01:21AM (#9481823)
    I wonder how much it would cost for someone to make a modem-to-ethernet dongle - something that does what my DSL router does, only using modem technology in addition to DSL. Since it's the same jack, all it needs is an extra DAC and minor software additions, right?

    One motivation not to spend money on a real modem is that you're getting DSL "real soon now." But with this, you'd already have a DSL router, and even then, it would cost about the same as a good Hayes modem. And of course you could share a connection with it.

    • Re:Modem router? (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well it wouldn't be too hard, there's just no motivation for doing it. With DSL/Cable and now even wifi in some areas, it wouldn't really be economically worthwhile for a company to produce something like that. I don't know, MAYBE, but I doubt it.

      If you were really inclined, you could do this. Find a PC/104 board with some type of disk-on-chip thing and slap linux on it. Then if this board doesn't have ethernet, buy a PC/104 ethernet card. Now also buy a PC/104 modem. Strip linux down conciderably so
      • It would probably be cheaper for most people to just grab some stock old desktop PC. For this purpose even an old 386 with a 100MB hard drive would be fine. Install a modem and an ethernet card. Install OpenBSD, Linux, whatever, and configure it as a bridge, NATed firewall, whatever you want. Stick the ethernet side into a hub and you're good to go. A headless old 386 or 486 ought shouldn't run you more than $30, and you could stick it in a closet or under a desk somewhere.

  • Ask for "A modem with a UART" (Score:5, Informative)

    by yuri benjamin ( 222127 ) <yuridg@gmail.com> on Monday June 21, 2004 @01:56AM (#9481941) Journal
    When I built a firewall from scrap parts (P166, 500Mb Harddrive) I emailed a whole bunch of computer hardware to ask for a non-window modem.
    I phrased my request like this:
    "PCI internal modem with a real UART that appears as a serial (COMx) port without any drivers"

    The clueless sales people who answer emails at some vendors got themselves struck off my list, while the cluefull ones replied that they knew what I meant but didn't have any - except for one vendor who guessed I most be running linux, and had one in stock. It cost me 45NZ$ (About 25US$) - they're more expensive than other modems because they have all the hardware to modulate and demodulate without using the cpu.

    One you insert the real modem inside the PC and reboot, then type:
    dmesg | grep tty
    you'll get a message like
    ttyS4 is a 16650A
    or something like that. That would mean that the modem is at /dev/ttyS4. Yours may be ttyS3.
    The hard part is finding a real PCI modem, cause not many places sell them. If you phrase your request like I did you're more likely to get the real thing.
  • My 5+ year old V.90 56k modem is being used right now on my router box (external, serial, conexant/rockwell chipset).

    My laptop has a Intel 537 internal modem. Got them working with the SmartLink drivers.
  • The modems I've had working under Linux were US Robotics modems. I had a 56k fax internal ISA modem and after that came the 56k PCI pro performance modem. Both worked fine under Linux. I went to PCI because the new board I bought didn't have ISA slots.

    Things to watch out for: If the modem's box says "for Windows*", it's a winmodem. If it shows up in Windows as a PCI communication device, it's a winmodem. PCI hardware modems will show up in Windows as PCI serial controllers. And Linux shouldn't have much t
    • Same here, on the Pro Performance. It's worked with every distro I've tried it with (Mandrake, RH, Gentoo).

      I've also tried the Conexant driver for the TiBook modem. Never got it to work, and everyone who responded in newsgroups or lists never got it to work either.

    • Yeah, I am a bit of a Linux user myself (I have Knoppix and Fedora Core 1), but I can't get my internet/IRC fix. But I am one of the lucky ones that has DSL, however, the first modem I had with it was a USB ADSL modem, and one that used a software driver *gasp*. However, that one bit the bucket, and got a new one, provided for free by my local ISP (yay ^_^), and thank god that there are drivers for it. But even though there are drivers for it (it's a ZyXel Prestige 630 modem, very nice.), I just don't know

  • A little off-topic here, but wasn't there once upon a time a software package that would emulate a modem in software using the mic/ear jacks on a soundcard? I'm thinking it only did some crappy low speed like 2400 or something, but my memory of this thing is real hazy. Perhaps with modern high end soundcards that are doing higher sample/bit rates, would it be possible to write a soft 56k modem using a soundcard?

    • Re:Soft modems? (Score:4, Informative)

      by ColaMan ( 37550 ) on Monday June 21, 2004 @04:10AM (#9482402) Journal
      Er, that's essentially what a winmodem is - a soundcard connected to your phone line.

      Computers with onboard audio still come occasionally with a "AMR" slot - this is where a Audio Modem Riser card goes - it pretty much just has the necessary bits to connect your sound card to the phone. Avoid them and winmodems in general at all costs.

      To the original submitter - get an external modem and save a lot of grief. Bonus is :

      - You can see the all-important "On Hook" light and see when your modem is still on the phone.
      - Following on from above , you can also physically unplug it / switch it off if it goes haywire (WTF? It won't hang up?), without powering off the PC.
      - it has plenty of status lights to watch (Why has my data flow stopped... are we still online? hmmm my modem has lost carrier and is retraining.)

      External hardware modems rock. If you can source one , get a woomera modem - I don't know if they have the approvals for you country though - they're made in .au . LCD display for monitoring signal quality/baud rate/line loss/etc, line impedance matching with 6 different impedance settings for best signal quality, can step down AND up speeds depending on line quality, etc. Google for 'woomera modem' if you want to see a *real* external modem ;-)
  • A year ago or so I bought a PC for home so I do not have to carry my laptop home if I may need to access some email at work, etc. The PC had a PCI card modem, so I asked in the shop if it is linux compatible, i.e. not a software modem - the
    PC was sold without any OS so it should work with any OS - if not, I would choose to buy an external hardware modem. They told me it is a winmodem type but a linux driver exists too. Fine, I tried it and spend an hour finding/downloading/installing the linux driver. Actua
    • Using Conexant / Linuxant hardware is supporting Linux. Now, before you start flaming me, hear me out.

      Conexant has provided drivers for their hardware that work under Linux. Granted, they're closed source. They're also charging money for them (I hear). Now, I suspect they're just trying to recoup the development cost -- that's what businesses do.

      Hold on to the flame thrower for just another minute now, I'm not done.

      The point is, they are doing what everyone has been complaining about and asking for

  • My results (Score:3, Informative)

    by Tux2000 ( 523259 ) <alexander.slashdot@foken@de> on Monday June 21, 2004 @05:14AM (#9482540) Homepage Journal

    Buy a "real" modem with a UART, preferably an external serial modem (RS232). Yes, a lot of people already said this already. But it's the only way to avoid trouble. There is no need to buy an expensive brand, just any external modem with a 9-pin or 25-pin connector will do the job. USB modems are often WinModems, so are most PCI modems. ISA is dead. ISA modems are often "real" modems with a build-in COM port (i.e. UART), but there are some ISA WinModems.

    Even if someone would try to build a serial port WinModem, he would fail terribly: the serial port is fast enough for the well-known Hayes commands even at 56.000 baud, but it is way to slow for a WinModem sampling the phone line and doing the modem part in Software. So an external serial modem can't ever be a WinModem.

    And by the way: Yes, I have a success story. My WinModem in my old Toshiba Tecra 8200 "accidentally" works. I just had to try two or three different drivers that all claimed not to work with my WinModem. Thanks to http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/ [technion.ac.il]! (But I just don't want to know what happens when I update my kernel.)

    Tux2000

  • I was just trying out MandrakeMove on an older Dell laptop recently, which doesn't have an ethernet port. Under Windows I either use a 1394 connection to a nearby PC or a WLAN connection if not near the PC, both via PCMCIA adapters. Both of them where impossible to get to work under MandrakeMove. The GUI of course didn't do any good and crashed right away in an error loop. But even after extensive googling and command line bashing I was not able to connect this laptop to the outside world, mainly due to a l
  • since i discovered wvdial i never had any problems on my PC. But i installed Linux several times on a friend's G3 and never got the internal modem up and running. I'm sure though that if i had a Mac at home, i would have tried until it works.
    • since i discovered wvdial i never had any problems on my PC. But i installed Linux several times on a friend's G3 and never got the internal modem up and running. I'm sure though that if i had a Mac at home, i would have tried until it works.

      The built in modem on the G3s and G4s are real serial modems. The modem shows up as a serial port. I have used the gPort [griffintechnology.com] product in the past to replace the modem with a serial port. Here is a little snipet explaining how they work (emphasis is mine):

      The gPort and

  • I know that it's been said but I'll say it again. Get an external Modem. I personally preffer USR V.Everything Fax Modem. It ran right around $300US but it just simply works.
  • My shiny new computer (second hand) came with some mystique winmodem. Some little googling showed me that there's a driver for 2.4-kernels called "pctel-0.9.6.tar.gz".
    It works for Via, Asus, CM8x, Sis, PCT and AMR based modems, but only "old" 2.4-kernels.
    It should be possible to port it to 2.6 (some include file has to be fixed).
  • Lucent modems (such as that with a Thikpad T22) work pretty nicely. Look for the ltmodem driver [uni-stuttgart.de], it claims to work on 2.6.

  • cost of manufacturering a real modem v winmodem? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by walterbyrd ( 182728 ) on Monday June 21, 2004 @08:19AM (#9482997)
    I have heard that the cost savings of taking the UART off the modem is almost nothing. UART's have been around a long time, they would only cost the HW manufacturer about an additional $1 per modem.

    So it would only cost about $1 to build a real modem, instead of a winmodem - so I've heard.

    If that's true, then it does it even make sense to make winmodems? Unless:

    1) Msft is influencing the HW manufacturers.

    or

    2) The HW manufacturers like selling winmodems for $20 and real modems for $80.
    • Computer hardware is a cut-throat industry. Probably 90% of their modem sales are winmodems. If they can save a dollar or two by leaving out the uart, then, they have to do it to stay alive.

      The real modems (with a uart) would be a lower volume business with a correspondingly lower income. They might be able to build the boards for only a dollar or two more; but, that's not the only consideration. There's also "supply and demand" and "what the market will bear" to consider. If most (90%) of the peopl

  • I use SuSe 8.0 Pro @ home. I have used this distro for the last 3 years, with little to no troubles. I have an off the wall brand modem installed in the box, so off the wall I can't get Windows drivers for it. It took me all of 5 mins to install and configure it under Linux. I too had to go the route of Winmodem hell, but found the drivers I was looking for rather easily. My only complaint about bieng online with Linux, my ISP doesn't support Linux. So after 45 minutes online, active or not, I get knocked o
    • My only complaint about bieng online with Linux, my ISP doesn't support Linux. So after 45 minutes online, active or not, I get knocked off which has never happened under Windows.

      Curious. I would run tcpdump at +40 minutes online and see what it displays. Are you sure it's not an APM issue?

      Enjoy,
  • Winmodems have been a problem in Linux not because we haven't been able to figure them out but because there really is no good solution. The FCC regulates any piece of equipment that uses standard phone lines. This is why the UARTs have such a well-defined interface (the Hayes command set). You can pull a UART and use it in your project since these guys have already been blessed by the FCC.

    Winmodems are cheaper to manufactor because the UARTs are pretty complex beasts (one poster said they cost $1 a pie
  • Before you drop you cash. Remember the HCL from hte early days of WinNT?

    Just spend the $40 on an external serial modem and you'll be good no matter what OS you use (just about... do Macs have serial ports?)
  • Two words: External Modem.

    You plug it into a serial port but you don't have to put the receiver of the phone into the little rubber grometty things anymore.
  • Serial modem. I got mine from Creative a few years back when I was on dial-up. It is totally worth it. You will end up hunting forever for an internal modem that will work. It is pretty much guaranteed to work with any OS.

  • It's not difficult to find a REALY hardware modem.
    Stop wasting your money on what is effectively nothing more than a sound-card with a relay... spend the extra $5 and buy yourself a HARDWARE modem.
    If it says "softwmodem", click the "next" button and forget you saw it... it doesn't matter how cheap it is if it's junk.

    My sister just bought (couple weeks ago) a real, hardware, PCI modem for about $9, so you have no excuse to keep buying crap and supporting the companies who produce it.

    Check PriceWatch [pricewatch.com] for th
  • If it has "drivers" either with the package or downloadable from the manufacturer, it's not a modem, it's a sound-card pretending to be a modem.

    NO modem needs a driver.
    They have a standard interface and a standard command-set... just like a keyboard (no drivers).

  • Both are PCI hardware modems. I've used both under Linux, and they work great. Now migrated to DSL, but they're still going strong.

    2976 is ~$40 at newegg.com
    2977/5610 is ~$70 at newegg

    (Not plugging newegg, especially, but I bought mine from them, and have had good luck with them on other hardware parts too)
  • Last time I upgraded, I got myself a 'real' modem with a proper UART. I don't use it much for actual dialup (only when ADSL dies, which happens about once a year), but it works real nice as a FAX modem and a computerized call-display unit.

    Now I can ssh to my home box and check to see who called me today.

  • This is the latest beta [redbaron.kgb.pl] of the official Conexant/Linuxant driver. Works great, 56kbps all the way, no problems. .. but it violates the GPL so i will NEVER EVER buy anything Conexant.
  • Run. Run now screaming in panic.
    Flee now lest ye face horrer the like of which ye he'na dreamed of in yer worst nit'mares. FLEE!!

    The true horrers of a linux modem setup can only be truely appricated on a Dell dimension, dual boot, fedora, XP.

    First off, the 'modem' will not work. It will of course be picked up by fedora, but alas, ne'er a peep is heard.
    So after hours, and hours, of searching through linmodems you finally just go out and get an external one as many sources will have assured you that, "all e

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