Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid? (in USD): None indicated | Rating: 4
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Kernel (uname -r):
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2.4.26
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Distribution:
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Slackware 10
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This is a WinModem.
It requires third party drivers that are *not* GNU GPL at the time of writing. Hence these drivers are not included with many distros and you may have to download them from the www.smlink.com. This is the website of Smartlink, the chipset manufacturer.
The Smartlink driver I have used the most is version 2.7.14. Very successful. The connection is stable and gives good performance. The modem was silent during connecting, but then again many people like to disable modem speakers anyway.
The 2.7 series drivers have now disappeared from the Smartlink website (but they are still out there on other sites), and have been replaced with the 2.9 series. They allow more than one Smartlink modem to be used simulataneously.
The 2.9.9 driver didn't seem to work at all with my ppp scripts as set up by Slackware's pppsetup. With KDE's kppp I had some success talking to /dev/modem (as a symlink to /dev/ttySL0, the device name that Smartlink use for their modems). But the connection didn't get past the authentication stage. Maybe this wasn't the fault of Smartlink's 2.9 drivers, but something I did.
Try the latest driver from www.smlink.com, but if it doesn't work then fall back on 2.7.14. A full archive of the drivers is presently available at http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/packages/smartlink/
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