Okay, so I've got the green Alcatel Speedtouch USB modem, in my area its to be 8, 35 for the VCI settings... I'm running Mandrake 10.0 as root in console.

Now I followed the Benoit Papillaut instructions as follows:

Cd into your /dev directory :
# cd /dev OK DONE THIS

Check ppp devices existence doing :
# ls *ppp* OK DONE THIS (without the asterisks) and get result "ppp"

If the ls command gives you an output go to the next step, else create all ppp devices typing :
# ./MAKEDEV ppp OK NOT APPLICABLE, DEVICE FOUND

Pppd configuration
Check your pppd version by typing :
# pppd --version. PROBLEM - "Command not found"


I keep going...

1st file :
You should have an /etc/ppp/options file, edit it and keep these 4 lines in it [various config lines]
OK I can't find this file so I created it in GEdit, saved as options.txt then renamed and deleted the .txt

Did the same for the 2nd file - "adsl" to be saved in etc/ppp/peers - created in Gedit as adsl.txt, then renamed without the .txt. Also completed the 3rd and 4th files ("chap-secrets" and "modules.conf" - modules.conf was found in /etc)


I then load the firmware mgmt.o - the right green eye on my modem goes orange...

Then
Launch pppd
Type (and pray) :
# pppd call adsl

I get Bash: command not found

Can anyone help with this pppd thing?

I've just migrated to Linux and naturally the first thing for survival is a working net connection.

Quick follow up:

I ran the automated setup speedtouchconf.sh which I found in the forum

and it give the reply "Required files pppd bc" not found "Download from Mandrake CDs or Internet"

So where can I get this mysterious module/executable?

I get "bash: pppd: command not found" if I enter pppd --version as a normal user but if I do the same thing as root I get "pppd version 2.4.1" because pppd is in /usr/sbin which is not in my path but is in roots path.
You problem is not with pppd, your problem is that speedtouch modems don't work with Linux-2.6 kernels unless you alter the code slightly http://www.mail-archive.com/speedtou.../msg05299.html before you compile the kernel. At least, that's the only solution I've found and it works for me, I'm posting this through a green speedtouch on a 2.6.4 kernel.
By the way, well done for getting as far as you have.

Edit - you can get bc here http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bc/bc-1.06.tar.gz

Hi Andrew,

OK that file you linked to refers to a file usb.c as found in drivers/usb/core.

But I'm running GNOME and MDK 10 and I can't find any such folder or file.

So what to do?

The usb.c file is part of the kernel source, on my system I keep the kernel source in /usr/src/linux . I've never been able to recompile the kernel for a disto like Mandrake or Redhat without trashing the whole thing. Maybe others can give you better guidance on that point. I started on Linux on Mandrake 9.1 and the speedtouch worked straight away, I setup the connection with the Mandrake control centre. I just took it for granted at the time but looking back it was a miracle. I never got it to work on Mandrake 9.2
This thread probably won't help http://www.mail-archive.com/speedtou.../msg05892.html but it might be worth reading anyway.

From the sounds of it your trying to get the kernel space driver working. If you want to do this then DO NOT install a userspace version of the driver as they conflict. To use the kernel space driver its likely you need to recompile the kernel with all the right options enabled. To do this you need to get the 2.6.3 kernel source or find it in mandrake, because i have no idea where it is in that distro. Then you need to do the usb.c hack to the source. After this you must compile the kernel with all the options benoit says to enable in his howto, and any other options that have to do with asynchronous transfer, but ignore all the kernel patching parts. After this you must install alcatels userspace tool mgmt.

Now, when i did this part and then created the virtual ethernet device called nas0 with br2684ctl (another binary you will need, found in this package, with all lib files), i still had a pppd problem like you did. I got around this by using roaring penguin as my pppoe program. Its very straight forward and easy to set up using the documention which must be read carefully. Then if you created the nas0 device successfully all you need to do is type adsl-start and presto your connected. If it times out then that means you need to compile your kernel again because you missed some sort of asynchronous transfer option.

This is all detailed in the howto found here . If you follow this to the letter then it is actually very easy to set up, because you dont have to patch the kernel. The reason im saying how to do this is because the scripts and userspace drivers never worked for me no matter how hard i tried. It is much better to do it yourself and then you can fix the problem if something doesn't work.