Suro,

I think soon we won't need modems to talk to ourselves. I was just thinking about, not kernel version, but distribution customization. I was wondering how could we check the differences into the kernel tree...
My kernel is 2.6.10-72032U10_12cl. This is the kernel distributed by former Conectiva, recently merged with Mandrake to form Mandriva.

I ran the connection for 1:30 h accessing hotscripts, NY Times and oglobo.com, a local newspaper with 9 mozilla windows opened, making downloads from hotscript. The connection ended because I disconnected. There was a regional power outage while I was trying to reconnect and I understood it as an invitation for lunch, one hour ago.

Is this modem your only access to internet or do you have a broadband like? If possible, I would recommend you to download it to check. I would give you the directions.

Besides this, I compiled the kernel with processor family "i586", because I like to have an standard kernel for all the machines. Are your kernel optimized? Maybe this could be a reason for these hangs.

Osvaldo.

Well the modem is the only access to the internet and I don't have and can't have a broadband access because of high prices in our country.

Kernel Optimized? - No (what do you mean saying optimized?) At least I haven't changed anything after updating.
I'm considering in buying an external Zyxel or any other modem to not have this kind of problems.

So I guess that soft(win)modem problems will always be with Linux operating systems. :-)

Suro,

The problem is really the following: I always told my customers to buy a hard modem, in spite of the price, which are 8 to 10 times greater. I also always recommended to buy an internal modem because of just one power source control. There is not little black boxes to be plugged onto the wall outlet. There is no serial cables to give disconnection problems, there is no light modem boxes falling behind the rack, etc.
But, at least here in Brazil it is being hard to buy these internal hard modems. The vast majority of the market is for windows users.
That is the reason I am trying to put this driver to work. I found you on google together with several more pages, which I didn't pay heavy attention because I was searching for a solved case.
I think if you can afford an external modem is a better solution, because all your problems with this kind of "pseudo-modem" will be solved. But the rest of the community will continue to try it because the Intel site says it has a driver for linux.

By optimized I say when you do a "Red Hat like" installation, if you have a athlon processor, it installs a kernel compiled with athlon optimizations, if your processor is an Pentium 4, it installs a kernel for P4 and so on. If you look on your distribution cd or iso, you will find several kernels with this indications. As the driver has just one proprietary library ("coredrv/537core.lib"), it can't be optimized. It must be compiled at most for "i586" which is the "Pentium classic".

I'm downloading the source of your kernel to compare it with mine. I'll tell you what I find soon.

By the way, here in Brazil, for somebody which lives working on the net it's possible to have a home adsl connection as it costs nearly US$ 20 monthly. I have one.

Ok, the kernel source download is finished and I'll take a look now!

See you soon,

Osvaldo.

I have an Intel 537EP and I'm using the 2.60.80.0 driver from Intel's website. I run Debian Sarge, kernel 2.4.27. I connect to AOL with penggy. As long as the dialing goes smoothly, everything is usually fine (except that penggy occasionally sends messages saying 'engine - an input buffer is full'; I don't know if that's the driver's or penggy's fault). If something does go wrong with the dialing (a bad number, for example, or other less comprehensible things) or if it gets disconnected improperly, the 537EP driver apparently becomes unstable. At best I can't reuse the modem (something like 'unable to open /dev/modem - bad address (14)') until I reboot, at worst a hung system. Trying to remove and reinsert the Intel537 module either doesn't work (can't remove the module) or makes things worse (system hang).
I also think that I seem to have sometimes have problems when making many simultaneous connections.

Hi guys!
I've update my mandrake 10.1 distro with mandriva le 2005, and now my modem doesn't work (INTEL 537EP)... please help me

Hi e.f84,
If you read all this thread you saw a patch I wrote for this modem. I don't know if it will work well with our Mandriva LE. It works well with Conectiva 10, which uses kernel 2.6.10 but, according to Suro, it is not stable with Fedora FC3 which already uses kernel 2.6.10.

May you tell us what kernel Mandriva LE uses, what kernel and distribution did you use before and your previous experience with this modem? Was it stable or it hung the system very often? Could you redial with no problems? What is your experience with Linux? Do you need help to patch and compile this modified driver?

Waiting for your answer,

Osvaldo.

Osvaldo,

Mandriva LE uses kernel 2.6.11.6.
I've used this modem with mandrake 10.0 (kernel 2.6.9.x), Mandrake 10.1 (kernel 2.6.10.x) and Suse 9.2 (I'll tell you the kernel as soon... I don't remember!).
It worked perectly with all the three distro using the intel drivers. I tested for a long time.
Here there is what shell did when I tried to compile under Mandriva.
Oh my name is Enrico.
See you


[enrico@localhost ~]$ su
Password:
[root@localhost enrico]# cd .intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/
[root@localhost .intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1]# make clean
cd coredrv; make clean
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv'
rm -f *.ko *.o *~ core
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv'
rm -f *.o *.ko
[root@localhost .intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1]# make 537
Module precompile check
Current running kernel is: 2.6.11-6mdk
/lib/modules... autoconf.h exists
diff: /boot/vmlinuz.autoconf.h: No such file or directory
autoconf.h matches running kernel
diff: /boot/vmlinuz.version.h: No such file or directory
version.h matches running kernel
2.6.11-6mdk
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv'
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.11-6mdk/build SUBDIRS=/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv modules
make[2]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.11-6mdk'
CC [M] /home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/coredrv.o
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/coredrv.c:70: warning: type defaults to `int' in declaration of `EXPORT_SYMBOL_NOVERS'
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/coredrv.c:70: warning: parameter names (without types) in function declaration
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/coredrv.c:70: warning: data definition has no type or storage class
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/coredrv.c: In function `open':
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/coredrv.c:394: warning: `pm_register' is deprecated (declared at include/linux/pm.h:106)
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/coredrv.c: In function `close':
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/coredrv.c:416: warning: `pm_unregister' is deprecated (declared at include/linux/pm.h:111)
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/coredrv.c: In function `hamproc_write':
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/coredrv.c:660: warning: ignoring return value of `copy_from_user', declared with attribute warn_unused_result
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/coredrv.c: At top level:
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/coredrv.c:754: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/coredrv.c:755: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/coredrv.c: In function `kScheduleDPC':
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/coredrv.c:861: warning: implicit declaration of function `pm_access'
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/coredrv.c: In function `dspdrv_CommRamISR':
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/coredrv.c:877: warning: function declaration isn't a prototype
CC [M] /home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/clmmain.o
CC [M] /home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/rts.o
CC [M] /home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/task.o
CC [M] /home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/uart.o
CC [M] /home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/wwh_dflt.o
CC [M] /home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/locks.o
CC [M] /home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/softserial_io.o
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/softserial_io.c: In function `softserial_write':
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/softserial_io.c:94: warning: ignoring return value of `copy_from_user', declared with attribute warn_unused_result
CC [M] /home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/softserial_ioctl.o
CC [M] /home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/softserial.o
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/softserial.c: In function `softserial_register_tty':
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/softserial.c:141: warning: assignment from incompatible pointer type
CC [M] /home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/afedsp_int.o
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/afedsp_int.c:48: warning: function declaration isn't a prototype
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/afedsp_int.c:61: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/afedsp_int.c:65: warning: function declaration isn't a prototype
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/afedsp_int.c: In function `afe_Write':
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/afedsp_int.c:417: warning: ignoring return value of `copy_from_user', declared with attribute warn_unused_result
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/afedsp_int.c: In function `afe_Read':
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/afedsp_int.c:437: warning: ignoring return value of `copy_to_user', declared with attribute warn_unused_result
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/afedsp_int.c: At top level:
/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/afedsp_int.c:454: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
LD [M] /home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/Intel537.o
Building modules, stage 2.
MODPOST
CC /home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/Intel537.mod.o
LD [M] /home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv/Intel537.ko
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.11-6mdk'
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/enrico/.intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1/coredrv'
[root@localhost .intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1]# make install
rm -f /etc/hamregistry.bin
bash 537_inst
running kernel 2.6.11-6mdk
installing hamregistry, used for persistant storage
installing usrsound, a soft buzzer
installing 537 module
mandrake 537_boot script
starting module and utilities
error loading Intel537
ERROR: Module Intel537 does not exist in /proc/modules
done[enrico@localhost ~]$ su

Hi Enrico,

The strange thing you told me is you did use it with kernel 2.6.10 (mdk 10.1). Between the 2.6.9 and 2.6.10 they changed the interface; the serial write command lost the second parameter. You can see it comparing the kernel source "drivers/char/generic_serial.c". On the vanilla 2.6.9 it is declared on line 105 asOn 2.6.10, it is declared on the line 106 asAs the distributors patch their kernels, I have to suppose that, or Mandrake got a rc kernel for its mkd-10.1 before the parameter removal, or it patched for re-including the lost parameter or it wouldn't work with ep537.

I suggest you to apply the second patch I put in this thread and see the modem behavior. I know there are some interface changes in 2.6.11because I did a compilation of the driver against that version, but I didn't run it on this kernel.

These patches I did were based on the observation of the warnings. You will see a reduction in the warnings when compiling after patching.

Good luck!

Osvaldo.

Hi Osvaldo,

I tried to patch as you suggest me, and this is the answer:


[root@localhost .intel-537EP_secure-2.60.80.1]# patch -p0 < patch.diff
patching file ./coredrv/afedsp_int.c
patch: **** malformed patch at line 6:


What means? Do you know I'm using windows to tell with you? I need this modem to work under linux!!!
Thanks

Hi Enrico,

I'm sorry I forgot to tell you about the uploaded patch. After revising the whole thread, I saw the link I put:
537ep. It's a tar.gz with the patch and the source files already patched.

Download it, copy to linux partition and enter "tar xzvf patch-537ep.tgz" into the 537ep base directory.

Good luck,

Osvaldo.

Hi Osvaldo,
I'm sorry but also this patch doesn't work... what distro do you use? I think I'll change mine with another one that support my modem!
See you...

Hi Enrico,

I use Conectiva 10 update 1. It's the distribution merged with Mandrake. It would be the "iva" from Mandriva.
When you untarred the 537ep, you already got the patched source files replacing the patched ones. What was the problem you have. It didn't compile, didn't install or didn't work? May you give me a detailed description of the actual problem?

Osvaldo.

Hi Osvald,

yes I replaced the original files with the patch ones, then I compiled but the result was the same.
Was I wrong?
Bye

Hi Henric,

Please, be specific! It's OK to replace the files with the patched ones.
What errors you got? Compilation, install or execution?

Osvaldo.

Hi Osvald,

Sorry, I'm so bungler! The error is in compilation! Shell does the same as I haven't patch anything. It says:

error loading Intel537
ERROR: Module Intel537 does not exist in /proc/modules.

Bye