Issues with Alcatel SpeedTouch -- prob firmware

Hi All,

I'm trying to get a green stingray Alcatel speedtouch ADSL modem set
up on my Debian Sarge box (kernel: 2.4.24, packages latest from
testing) and have following the instructions in the Debian Sarge HOWTO (http://linux-usb.sourceforge.net/Spe...argehowto.html).
I had no problems with the instructions and when I look in my
/var/log/messages there appear to be successful loads of the speedtch
driver. Also I _think_ that hotplug is working as things like my USB
keydrive work fine when plugged in at any point.

However, when I plug in the speedtouch modem, I get the following:
# hub.c : new USB device 00:07:2-1 assigned address 2

After that nothing happens (according to the plugin firmware loading
script in the HOWTO, I'd at least expect some messages printed to the
screen if it were loading the firmware).

If I try to initiate the connection myself, I get the following:
#pon speedtch
Plugin ppoatm.so loaded
PPPoATM plugin_init
PPPoATM setdevname - remove unwanted options
PPPoATM setdevname_pppoatm - SUCCESS: 0.38
connect(0.38): Resource temporarily unavailable

I'm assuming this means that either the firmware isn't being loaded or
(more likely) the script to load the firmware (from the HOWTO) isn't
actually executed.

Can anyone help me diagnose further/fix this please?

Thanks
PJ

Little more background:
I originally installed Debian stable (Woody) using a minimal boot CD
and then apting everything else in via the connection that a WinXP is
making using the Speedtouch modem. I'm trying to set up a home network
running off the Deb box. When I read the documentation and realised a
newer kernel was used, I upgraded the kernel (via source build) to
2.4.24 and then changed the source list to use the testing distro. I
am new to this Linux game, so please let me know if I'm not giving
enough info and if you can suggest commands when instructing to do
stuff then it will save me loads of time, so I'll be well appreciative
:-)

"connect(0.38): Resource temporarily unavailable" does indeed mean the firmware hasn't been loaded, though you should be able to see this from the lights on the modem. They haven't flashed so the firmware hasn't loaded. You should be able to load the firmware with a command. If you used the Speedbundle it will have put the firmware in /usr/lib/speedtouch/firmware.bin so the command to load it should be

/usr/sbin/modem_run -f /usr/lib/speedtouch/firmware.bin

If you built the speedtouch driver into the kernel you need to use the -k switch

/usr/sbin/modem_run -k -f /usr/lib/speedtouch/firmware.bin

then when the connection has settled down for a couple of seconds connect to your ISP with ppp

/usr/sbin/pppd call speedtch

If that works, put it all in a script and run it at boot time (sorry, I'm not familiar with Debian bootscripts, though I could look into it as I have an ubuntu CD somewhere)

#!/bin/bash
/usr/sbin/modem_run -k -f /usr/lib/speedtouch/firmware.bin &&
sleep 2 &&
/usr/sbin/pppd call speedtch

Thanks very much for taking the time to respond.

I tried uploading the firmware again (I had downloaded firmware.bin manually, so had it saved) using both the -f alone and -k -f switches and got no response from the modem -- no error messages from the console, but equally no flashing lights.

As a result the response from the pppd call is the same as before.

Any other ideas? I've rtfm'd and gone through about a dozen HOWTOs to check I remembered everything and I'm just a bit stumped now

Do you have this line in /etc/fstab?

usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs defaults 0 0

Hiya

I had a look in /etc/fstab and found I didn't have the line you mention. What does that mean? I tried adding it and then had the presence of mind to go check if I had usbfs in my filesystem list -- I only had usbdevfs, so I updated the fstab entry accordingly. However, is this maybe one of my problems? If so, how do I add support for plain old usbfs?

Tried manually uploading the firmware again and still no dice.

Thanks for all your help so far
PJ

That line mounts the USB filesystem. If it hasn't been mounted that's one of the reasons that modem_run can't load the firmware. Another option is to add the -v (verbose) switch to the modem_run command.

/usr/sbin/modem_run -v -f /usr/lib/speedtouch/firmware.bin

This may encourage it to tell you why it can't load the firmware. Are you using the driver in the kernel source or the pppoa3 from the speedbundle? Do the lights on the modem change at all or just stay green? Also, if the speedbundle isn't working for you, why not give the speedtouchconf tarball a shot? I used to find it easier than the speedbundle. It may complain about the version of ppp that the speedbundle has installed so you may need to delete /etc/ppp and /usr/lib/pppd and install ppp-2.4.1 but it's worth a try if you don't get anywhere with the speedbundle.

Modem run doesn't give me _any_ error messages, even if I run it with -v 2

Re kernel source vs speedbundle, to be honest I am completely confused. When I compiled the kernel, it included Speedtouch support (kernel 2.4.24 Debian sarge), but I also (possibly quite stupidly) ran the Speedbundle package -- I don't think it did everything successfully though as it had a load of operations that weren't used. So then I followed the Debian Sarge HOWTO here: http://linux-usb.sourceforge.net/Spe...rgehowto.html, which I think is the kernel method. I managed to follow all the steps there and everything seems setup fine, except this problem with the firmware not appearing to load.

If I try the speedtouchconf method, is that userspace? I am wondering whether I should just start over completely and try again to be honest, but I'd rather not

If you are going to try the speedtouchconf approach, you might want to delay it for a while. You might want to check out the speedtouch package in sarge. It's uses the same Benoit Papillault's GPL drivers as the speedtouchconf project. (minus the auto configuration though) The package provides you with howtos in /usr/share/doc/speedtouch . Follow the instructions and see if they work for you.

After reading this thread of yours, I suddenly realized what I'm doing wrong in getting the kernel mode driver to work. I've used only the user mode drivers so I'm doing up the kernel mode driver the wrong way. Just a note. Although the howto (int the speedtouch package) is for the user mode drivers, the examples are for both kernel and user mode drivers (defaulting to kernel mode). Most of the stuff have been done for you by the packages so it's really easy to use either mode in sarge. I'll be posting the details soon.

First of all, I'm using Debian sarge with the 2.6.8-1-386 kernel. The modem is a alcatel speedtouch USB (sting ray). I installed the speedtouch and libatm1 (depended on by speedtouch - should be automatically selected) deb packages. There are a few files that are needed:
[list=1][*]/etc/hotplug/usb/speedtouch[*]/usr/share/doc/speedtouch/examples/peers-pppoa[/list=1]

Get the firm ware for the modem as described at http://www.linux-usb.org/SpeedTouch/download/index.html
As root, create the file /etc/default/speedtouch with these lines, replacing the italics with the correct values.

FIRMWARE_FILE=path/to/file
PPPD_PEER=pppoa

As root, copy 2 to /etc/ppp/peer/ naming it whatever you want. (I named mine pppoa - cf /etc/default/speedtouch )

Edit the file to uncomment the username and change it to your value.

#user "myusername@myprovider.net"

For using the kernel mode driver:
Edit the file to provide the correct vci.vpi pair.

# These options configure pppd to talk with the kernelspace speedtch driver.
# Don't forget to adapt the VP.VC pair to your ISP/country settings.
# Read the FAQ for some VP.VC pairs.
plugin pppoatm.so
8.35

1 is already set up for the kernel mode driver so no changes need to be made.


For using the user mode driver:
comment the lines above for the kernel mode driver and uncomment the line below, change the vpi and vci to the correct numbers.

#pty "/usr/sbin/pppoa3 -c -m 1 -vpi 8 -vci 35"

As root, edit 1. comment out

     MODEM_RUN_OPTIONS="$MODEM_RUN_OPTIONS -k"

add on the first line of load_firmware

rmmod speedtch

edit: You can of course chose to omit the /etc/default/speedtouch file and set the variables in the hotplug script itself. I actually set up my script such that I can control the mode of the driver via /etc/default/speedtouch .

Hiya

Thanks very much for all the help -- I think I've got it sorted now :-) I ended up reinstalling Sarge since I think I'd messed everything up completely by following various sets of instructions and not really understanding what I was doing ;-)

Now I can get the firmware uploaded and the ADSL line up and running (var/log/messages thinks so anyway). I think I am missing an entry in interfaces though since when I run ifconfig I still only have my local loopback and the ethernet card.

Any ideas what I need to do next?

Thanks!
PJ

Can you post the bit of /var/log/messages that you're talking about so we can see where you're up to? That may not be easy to do if you have to reboot into windows to use the net. Maybe you can save it to a floppy? Or just write down the relevant bits.

I just realized that I completely forgot to mention about the secret files... mis-sight on my part.

A mate came around and helped me put debug messages in everywhere so we could see what was going on. Basically even though the ADSL line was being brought up, when pppd tried to connect it was just b0rking. When we got sufficient granularity of the error messages, it turned out that the pppoatm module wasn't loaded. So we've added that into the load@boot section and now it all works fine :-)

Thank you all for your help on this -- now on to setting up the rest of the network

Strange... I didn't have that problem when I first posted. I recently reinstalled sarge and encounter exactly this problem. Wonder what I did then...