Problem with USB to serial adaptor. Firewall or driver?
 

I am trying to switch from Vista to Linux (Kubuntu 7.04.) and have managed to set up a working dual boot system. But the learning curve is surprisingly steep, and so internet access between Linux and the web is imperative.

I live in a rural area with no options but dial-up access. My computer (Fairly new Intel Pentium 4) came equipped with an internal winmodem. Even a Newbie like myself knows that will not work with Linux. So I purchased a cheap external modem (Amigo Conexant v.92 RS232 analog) before discovering that modern computers have replaced serial ports with USB devices.

To get around that snafu I ordered a 'serial to USB adaptor' cable(Sabrent USB2serial).
It came with a disk containing several variations of PL2303 drivers. I downloaded them from disk to hard drive, but don't really understand what to do with them.

Now to the crux of the problem: Kubuntu will make the connection to my ISP via the modem. But when I try to load a page, this message comes up:
"Error while loading, could not connect to the host"

Reading Linuxquestions.org, gave me the impression that an 'omesg' printout might be helpful in accessing my situation so here’s the part that seems relevant:

[ 16.557144] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial
[ 16.557174] drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial support registered for generic
[ 16.581798] 8139cp: 10/100 PCI Ethernet driver v1.3 (Mar 22, 2004)
[ 16.704188] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
[ 16.704196] drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial Driver core
[ 16.722884] drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial support registered for pl2303
[ 16.722953] pl2303 4-2:1.0: pl2303 converter detected
[ 16.723361] usb 4-2: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[ 16.723375] usbcore: registered new interface driver pl2303
[ 16.723379] drivers/usb/serial/pl2303.c: Prolific PL2303 USB to serial adaptor driver
[ 16.834113] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:14.2[A] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 18
[ 17.034256] hda_codec: Unknown model for ALC883, trying auto-probe from BIOS...
[ 17.092539] input: ImPS/2 Generic Wheel Mouse as /class/input/input3
[ 19.493568] fuse init (API version 7.8)
[ 19.545245] lp: driver loaded but no devices found
[ 19.574832] Adding 2008084k swap on /dev/disk/by-uuid/b4709857-a49d-4b03-838c-cacf8de2c72a. Priority:-1 extents:1 across:2008084k
[ 19.704443] EXT3 FS on sda2, internal journal
[ 24.869906] input: Power Button (FF) as /class/input/input4
[ 24.869943] ACPI: Power Button (FF) [PWRF]
[ 24.870031] input: Power Button (CM) as /class/input/input5
[ 24.870062] ACPI: Power Button (CM) [PWRB]
[ 25.025345] ibm_acpi: ec object not found
[ 25.180680] No dock devices found.
[ 25.223197] Using specific hotkey driver
[ 25.310119] pcc_acpi: loading...
[ 28.529547] ppdev: user-space parallel port driver
[ 29.087965] apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.16ac)
[ 29.087974] apm: disabled - APM is not SMP safe.
[ 29.600282] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.11
[ 29.600395] NET: Registered protocol family 31
[ 29.600398] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
[ 29.600403] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
[ 29.618845] Bluetooth: L2CAP ver 2.8
[ 29.618851] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
[ 29.986280] Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized
[ 29.986298] Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized
[ 29.986301] Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.8
[ 53.314208] hda-intel: Invalid position buffer, using LPIB read method instead.
[ 58.237571] NET: Registered protocol family 10
[ 58.237699] lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions
[ 58.237776] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
[ 62.700352] ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
[ 63.018210] ISOFS: changing to secondary root
[ 85.463131] usb 4-2: USB disconnect, address 2
[ 85.463534] pl2303 ttyUSB0: pl2303 converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0
[ 85.463566] pl2303 4-2:1.0: device disconnected
[ 94.481948] usb 4-1: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 3
[ 94.700994] usb 4-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 94.702939] pl2303 4-1:1.0: pl2303 converter detected
[ 94.703288] usb 4-1: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[ 338.146285] PPP generic driver version 2.4.2
[ 339.181602] PPP BSD Compression module registered
[ 339.220558] PPP Deflate Compression module registered

I think the trouble is either with drivers or maybe a firewall?
(Does Linux have a built-in firewall?)
Some clear and concise instructions on how to manipulate drivers in Linux would be very useful to beginners like myself.

Any helpful information from seasoned users would be much appreciated.
Kpark

How do you know Kubuntu is connecting? Do you hear/see the modem dial? What program are you using to make the connection?

If you can't find the page, I'd say you're not connecting. The "drivers" that you have are for Windows, and are unnecessary for Linux. The above message says that your device is coming up as ttyUSB0 (the file is /dev/ttyUSB0). Whatever PPP program you're using, is probably looking for /dev/modem. You either need to configure your program to look for /dev/ttyUSB0, or (as root), run this command: "ln -s /dev/ttyUSB0 /dev/modem"

That will make a symbolic link from the tty device, to the modem device, and the program will run from there. You do have a firewall (probably), but this has nothing to do with it; if you can't pull up a web page, you're not connected.

I think this is the relevant portion.. your modem is attached to /ttyUSB0


Bah, a minute late and a more informative post above :) never fails.

Appreciate your replies
 

The modem is still inoperable, but thank you both for taking the time to offer helpful suggestions. Modem problems seem to be a major stumbling block to "would-be" Linux users, mainly due to the prevalence of winmodems.
I have recently discovered the "Linux Documentation Project" online and copied it to my Linux partition (Using the library's computer). I hope to find a solution therein. Some of the information is dated, but it should be required reading for all "Newbies".

Not a big stumbling block. http://www.linuxant.com provides fully-functional software, easy to install, to make a Winmodem work perfectly. Even the fax features, and it's $20 for a full-function version. They have a free version that's limited to 14.4k, though, so you can either use it, or test with it, before you upgrade. External modems hardly ever have problems, though, unless it's the device-issue (i.e. /dev/modem not there, and the dialer won't look for whatever device you have it plugged in to.).