While I have the Motorola SB5100 cable modem installed using ethernet with a realtek clone card and connecting to Bigpond (Australia's biggest ISP) using cable, the problem I had was not being able to provide my login to actually open web pages. The modem connected, although I had to muck about with the Mandrake Control Centre and both the Hardware and Network/Internet modules first to configure them.

I have now found a Linux login client for BigPond at: http://bpalogin.sourceforge.net/

This client is available in several versions and may help those using other ISPs

I also found lots of info arranged by ISP re connecting to cable (mainly in the US - but htis is also where I found the link to the BigPond login client) at:
http://www.linuxforum.com/linux-cable-modem/isps.html

I have not tried the Motorola SB5100 with USB drivers.

The PII 400 computer otherwise runs win 98 (dual boot with win98 on one hard drive and Mandrake 9.1 on a separate hard drive). The cable modem and BigPond's login client work fine under windows 98.

The modem was provided by BigPond on signing up to a 2 year plan and the normal price independent of a cable plan is not known.

I'm using Motorola 5100 SurfBoard modem with USB support.

I always use USB devices, so i compiled them into the kernel.

Here's my kernel configuration:

CONFIG_USB=y
CONFIG_USB_UHCI_HCD=y
CONFIG_USB_USBNET=y
CONFIG_USB_CDCETHER=y

Works out of the box. Did not have to do anything to configure it. Have it connected through the Ethernet and not USB

Have dual boot with Windows XP (SP2) but on a different Hard Disk. Linux is installed on a SATA 120 GB Seagate and Windows on a PATA 80 GB Western Digital both having 8mb cache.

The first day ran into problems of slow speed after the connectin was installed but an email to the provider quickly sorted out the things and now getting very good speed on a 128k connection.

Since it came with the package deal I did not pay for the modem.

Worked out of the box with no configuration other than supplying MAC address to ISP.

Using ethernet instead of USB only because that was the way the old modem was connected to my router.

Works just fine on my isp Road Runner here in the USA.

connected to a befsr41 linksys router.
then via eithernet to my pc

Works extremely well. Provides a standard Ethernet connection that any computer can use, regardless of OS. No DHCP or configuration troubles. Works well with my router (D-Link DI-514) too.

I've been using it for more than a week and works like a charm.

I have two (sometimes more using a router and the ethernet port) computers connected to it one via USB cable (Desktop PC) and the other one via ethernet (Laptop) and no problems so far using DHCP for both interfaces.

Morning.

As an SB5100 user for the devil (I assume you all know who THAT is), I've had no problems. As for using it on Ubuntu, I couldn't find drivers for it.

I read your posts that say to use Ethernet, not USB, and will be trying that very shortly.

Why I couldn't just come here in the first place eludes me, but thanks for the help anyway. :D

Since +-kernel-2.6.17 this driver has a bug..

http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6747