A Tale of Three Modems ---------------------- Last week two windows users asked me to set up linux on their computers. I typically do three a year, so getting two in one week is a bit unusual. To make it worse, both of these computers included winmodems. I hate winmodems. I always keep an external modem in my spare parts box, but I could only use the external on one of the machines, so I knew that I would either have to get one of these winmodems working with linux or tell one of these PC owners that linux won't run on their machine. (Yes, of course the kernel will run but try explaining the subtleties of device support to a windows user - they just look at you and think "linux doesn't work.") I don't like winmodems, but I won't pass an opportunity to move a windows user to linux. So here's the story. Modem #1: Aztech MDP3900U-V --------------------------- David got pissed off last weekend when his win98se system got corrupted. His ISP tech support suggested that he reinstall windows. That would be the third windows reinstall in six months. David already uses Mozilla under windows - or at least he used it until windowsupdate reset IE as default and then IE corrupted his system. David and I have been friends for years, so he told me that he was ready to make the jump to linux, but he wanted to keep his win98se partition just for games. No problem. I installed knoppix 3.4 on a second hard drive for him. David's computer uses an Aztech MDP3900-V which uses a Conexant HCF chipset. Linmodems.org refered me to the linuxant.org website. Linuxant offers a semi-free linux driver for Conexant modems. It worked like a charm. I downloaded the debian package, used dpkg -i to install the package. It built and installed a driver and set up the /dev/modem symlink. After that I just configured kppp and everything worked. Remember I said semi-free? The linuxant driver asks for a license key. Enter the word "FREE" and the driver will work but only at 14.4 kpbs. If you want to go full speed (theoretically 56 kbps, but where this computer was located only 28.8 kbps) then you have to pay $14.99 for a license. I paid for a license, changed keys and the driver worked perfectly. This was probably the easiest modem install I have every done in linux. I found it hard to believe that this is a winmodem. And what makes it even better, under windows the generic conexant driver for win98 didn't work at all and the Aztech win98 driver worked, but not as well as the linuxant driver. So the linux winmodem driver actually worked better than the windows winmodem drivers. Linuxant earned the $14.99. Modem #2: AMI-2019F/2019C ------------------------- Dennis arrived at our last BGLUG meeting with his PC. He asked for a linux install. I took the machine home, installed Knoppix 3.4 to his second hard drive, then did an apt-get upgrade on it (see my paper at http://www3.sympatico.ca/howlettfamily/linux/knoppix_addons.html for a list of things to add after a knoppix hard drive install). His computer includes an AMI-2019F/2019C winmodem using the Ambient MD5628D-L-B chipset. Again, linmodems.org was my starting point. It told me that Ambient is now owned by Intel. So going through the Intel support pages, eventually I found myself at a linux drivers page (see ugly asp url below). http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df/filter_results.asp?strOSs=39&strTypes=DRV&ProductID=1057&OSFullName=Linux*&submit=Go%21 Woohoo! A vendor supported linux winmodem driver! And this one doesn't cost $14.99! But does it work? So I downloaded the file, extracted and unzipped it. bash# make clean; make ham; make install bash# ll /dev/modem lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Aug 13 21:10 /dev/modem -> /dev/ham Configured kppp and ... it worked! First try! Only connected at 26400 bps though. Which is typical in my neighbourhood, but a little slow when you're used to DSL. Anyway, it works and no sweat. Modem #3: Lucent/Agere Mars2 ----------------------------- Maybe you noticed at the beginning of this story that I really don't like winmodems. And when these two modems worked I was honestly surprised. That's because a few years ago I boasted to my wife that linux would run on anything. So she asked me to install it on her computer. After several days of cursing, I had to admit that her modem wouldn't work with linux. Yes, a winmodem. A Lucent/Agere winmodem. But knowing how easy these first two installs were, I am now ready to tackle that Lucent winmodem. I used the same knoppix 3.4 hard drive install as the previous two computers. Google pointed me at this page: http://www.physcip.uni-stuttgart.de/heby/ltmodem/ where I got re-targeted to this address: http://www.physcip.uni-stuttgart.de/heby/ltmodem/ which gave me deb ltmodem deb packages. So I downloaded and installed the package: bash# dpkg -i ltmodem-2.4.26-1-686_8.31a3_i386.deb But I got the following error: ---------------- These drivers were compiled with a major version gcc=3 . The current kernel was compiled with a major version gcc=2 This kernel and drivers version mismatch can CRASH the System. Hence please achieve compatible between kernel and drivers, If you were clever enough to delibertately create this situation, you can surely bypass this Safety measure, or report to discuss@linmodems.org See the record: /usr/share/doc/ltmodem-2.4.26-1-386/LTinstall.txt But for the System's safety now, Exiting dpkg: error processing ltmodem-2.4.26-1-386 (--configure): subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1 Errors were encountered while processing: ltmodem-2.4.26-1-386 E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) ----------------- I know that gcc 3.3 is installed on the system. So I downloaded the kernel source and rebuilt the kernel. Then I re-installed the deb package, but I still had some errors. Finally I downloaded the ltmodem source from http://www.sfu.ca/~cth/ltmodem/ltmodem-8.31a8.tar.gz There's a "build_deb" script in the root directory. I ran the build_deb script, installed the deb package, and it worked! It was a pretty good week. Three winmodems working, two of them really easy installs. So maybe winmodems aren't as bad as I thought. ### Local Variables: *** ### auto-fill-mode: 1 *** ### fill-column: 70 *** ### End: ***