Hi. I installed Mandrake 9.2 along with WinXP on my computer 3 days ago. I had a WinModem installed so I had to go and buy a controller-based one. The one I purchased is the 56K US Robotics Performance Pro Modem, which states that it is supported on Linux.
On the installation manual that came with the modem, it says that the modem will be automatically installed on computers running the Linux 2.3 kernel or higher, because the Linux drivers are already included. This is as long as the PnP module is enabled; however, my system is not detecting it. I looked under Windows and the modem was first connected to COM3 which would make it ttyS2 on Linux, right? I went into Linux and ran minicom and it showed that ttyS1 and ttyS2 were locked. I proceeded to switch the modem from one PCI slot to another because the USR Installation Manual said to do this if the modem wasn't automatically detected. It still isn't. Windows now shows the modem as being set up on COM5. I went into HarDrake (sp?) to see if the modem was automatically detected but it's not. Could anyone help? Keep in mind that I'm really new at this so detailed explanations would be greatly helpful.
How do I check whether the PnP module is enabled?
How do I unlock serial ports? Is this possible to do?
I have been looking at a lot of documentation online, especially the HOW-TOs on tldp.org and it's all really confusing. Do I HAVE to set up the serial port before I install the modem? And is it necessary to have those initialization strings? Could someone just provide a step-by-step explanation of what I need to do to install a modem?

Thanks in advance.

Files (like the port) are locked when something is using them. Try booting in runlevel one (add the 'single' option at the boot menu), and then run minicom. The file for the serial port should not be locked then, and if it is, delete the lockfiles form /var/lock and try again. If that makes it work, try to figure out whatwas hogging the port in your default runlevel.

For any hardware modem, all you need to do is select it's serial port from your favorite dialer (like minicom), and see if you can talk to it. Then you can try dialing.

OK. This is gonna sound really dumb but how do I get into the boot menu?

The boot menu is the menu you use to choose which os you want to boot. Describe it here, for the process of adding a boot option differs from bootloader to bootloader.

Boot menu looks as follows:
linux
linux-nonfb
failsafe
windows
floppy.

The dialer I am trying to use is KPPP. I went into the setup part of it and on the dropdown list of ports to choose from, I changed from /dev/modem to /dev/ttyS0 through /dev/ttyS3. If I'm not mistaken, if the modem is on COM5 in Windows, it should be on /dev/ttyS4 on Linux but the list only went up to /dev/ttys3.
I got error messages on all ports saying that the modem could not be found except when I used /dev/ttyS1 which gave me a message saying that the modem did not answer.

Describe it more. I need it's name. Does it have graphics?
See if your modem turns up when you do 'cat /proc/pci'
What list?

I think it's LILO, but yes, it's graphic oriented. You just select which system to boot; it doesn't have any command line entry.

I'm using KDE because I am not that familiar with Linux yet and don't feel comfortable in a console environment. KPPP has a drop-down list in which you select what port the modem is using. The list only went up to /dev/ttyS3.

Take note of the name of choice you usually select, then press tab. Enter the name of what you usually select, a space, then 'single'.

I ran that cat command and here's what I got as far as the modem goes:

Bus 0, device 11, function 0:
Serial Controller: 5610 56K Fax Modem 56K Fax Modem Model 5610 (rev 1).
IRQ 3
IO at 0xd000 [0xd007]

So I guess the modem is being detected but I can't access it for some reason.

When you boot in single user mode (runlevel 1, using the 'single' option), can you access it? What list were you talking about earlier?

When I got to the boot menu and I pressed tab, nothing happened so I am not able to get into the single mode. What exactly is it?

As for the list I was talking about, if you're running KDE and you run KPPP, if you go into the setup and then into the Device tab, there will be a drop-down list called Modem Device. From there you can select /dev/modem, /dev/ttyS0, /dev/ttyS1, etc.
When I select /dev/modem or /dev/ttyS1 through /dev/ttyS3 and then try to dial, I will get an error message saying that /dev/ttySX was not found and to make sure that the modem was properly installed. When I select /dev/ttyS0 or /dev/ttyS4 (which I was able to enter manually), the log shows "Modem Ready" and then "Modem did not respond".

Are you sure it's the graphical lilo? it will have fancy colors... if it is lilo with just a regular menu, you should have a little prompt under the menu.

It's blue and it says "Mandrake Linux 9.2" on the lower right corner but I am pretty sure it's LILO because that's what I selected on the initial install of the system as my boot manager.
I tried tab again but nothing happened so I hit Esc and it took me into a console mode with the same options, the prompt was "boot:" and I entered "linux single" as instructed.
The system started booting up and I got to this prompt: "sh -2.05b#".
I ran the cat command you suggested earlier and the modem was there. I tried to run KPPP but it said a connection to the X server couldn't be made. Then I ran minicom and I got in but since I don't know how to use it and nothing that I entered seemed to work, not even hitting Esc, I had to reboot my machine.
This is getting really frustrating. Should I just install a different distribution and see if it would detect my modem automatically? I am trying to learn Linux but there's too much information coming too fast. I chose Mandrake because I heard that it was really easy but I guess "easy" in Linux-speak is still hard for us losers that can't breathe without Windows.

see this for minicom:
http://linuxguide.automatedshops.com...p.html#minicom

ctrl-z will pause any program, 'fg' will bring it back.