I have a SONY VAIO Laptop K115S, currently between distros.

I have also taken consignment of a Thomson Speedtouch 330 USB ADSL modem, which is currently happily running on my XP partition.

However, just before I ruined my Linux install, I was having trouble setting up this modem. A lot of documentation claims that I needed kernel 2.4.x to use the supplied drivers.

However, I am concerned that Kernel 2.6 contains better power management features for my Laptop.

I was using ACPI=on with my mandrake setup, would APM do the same job?

I was considering obtaining Debian and either compiling a 2.4 kernel or upgrading to Sarge & compiling a 2.6 kernel.

Has anyone had a successful time setting up this modem on a 2.6 kernel, if so what distro were you using and what kernel?

If not, does anyone with more experience than me know if I will have any adverse effects simply by using a 2.4 kernel on this Laptop?

I don't know about laptops as I don't have one, but I this Sony Vaio desktop needs ACPI enabled in order to power down. Having said that, it used to work fine with a 2.4 kernel but anyway, that's all off topic. The speedtouch modem was a little tricky to get working when to 2.6 kernel series was new but it's been great for me for months. I'd go with a 2.6 kernel if I were you. I read that there might be a problem with the speedtouch if you're using Mandrake 10.1 community edition http://www.mail-archive.com/speedtou.../msg06786.html but it should work if you buy the official CD's. I don't use Mandrake anymore so I can't say. I like the speedtouch. Not many modems have their driver included in the kernel source.

Hi Swampy,

I just managed to get my Speedtouch 330 USB going with Ubuntu (Linux kernel 2.6.something). And I'm a noob, so I reckon it should take you a lot less time than it took me .

Anyway, here are some (not too many) details: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ght=speedtouch

Sincerely,
René.

Thanks for the advice on this.

My old Mandrake 10.0 Official CDs have been damaged, somehow. If I get CD1 fixed I'll have another try with that.

I'm currently waiting for some Debian CDs to arrive, If I can download Ubuntu quicker I'll have a bash at that.

As a quick aside, ReneBE, how are you finding Ubuntu as a stable system? I'm curious to see how it compares to a standard Debian system.