Hi,

I have various distro's of linux and I want to finally take the big step and use it as my ACTUAL OS and not just a substitute. So, therefore, I would like some recommendations on good, working external modems (serial) that are known to work with linux.. thanks

Any Hayes compatable modem should work well. Take a look at http://poulpetersen.dk/linux/ukmodem.htm
Don't know what type of modem services you are going to use (dsl, isdn, etc.), so can't specify a specific product. Look at

Im thinking about going with this modem?

http://www.us.buy.com/retail/product...241146&loc=390

It should work fine shouldnt it?

us robotics is good. i think its a good idea u stick with external. most externals will work with linux.

I know you gys above were talking about the use of external modems. That is very true...Most external (and to be honest from my research, damn near ALL external) modems work great!

However, this is my philosophy... If you can get inside your box things seem to work better overall (this is just my opinion and personal preference...). To start off with I have a pctel winmodem that is indigenous to the motherboard. Last summer it would nopt work with linux but now of course, pctel has finally relented to creating a winmodem driver specifically for linux.

Ive been, however, using a true hardware internal modem. For my money Creative makes the best. They were mainly ISA (mine for example is ISA) and now they are coming out with PCI internals that will work and be detected by linux. Most of the time, and this includes external serial models, you have to get into your BIOS and disable Plug N Play Aware OS. It may say this word for word or it may say something a little different.

Personally, I love SuSE... however, SuSE Personal and Professional 7.0 (and newer), I suspect as well, did not include PPP support in the kernal. Before you start saying, "What the F?", consider that it is even easier for newbies to connect with programs like Kinternet and WVDIAL. If youre like me and preferred the old KPPP or Gnome PPP Dialer then your out of luck with this distro (its only flaw thus far ;-)). However, I have done a lot of research on my own and experimented with newer and older modems, internal and external, and have discovered for your time and your money Creative Modems are the way to go...so far anyways.

If I have been inaccurate or completely unhelpful, let me know ;-)!!!

You would be well advised to look around for modem compatibility on the web to see if the specific modem you want to buy is listed as compatible.
Your chances of success with an external modem are very good, but I would still go out there and look around for websites that list the compatible modems. I knew what this website was at one time, however, did not take good notes. But if you go to google.com and search for "compatible Linux modems", you probably will find this web page.
Look at:
http://www.rootprompt.org/article.ph...cle=1110#modem

Thanks a lot, I will look around at various websites for compatibility and what not.

the good thing about US Robotics modems is that, if the modem works under linux, it's nicely labeled "linux compatible" on the box - that's probably the quickest way to check

As with PhilFighter, I like to keep it internal though I came across this modem that I am probably going to buy. It looks like it should work great. here - http://www.tcwo.com/cgi-bin/webc.cgi...gi2Ty0Gm0NmDhC

I think your search is over.
The modem is inexpensive and the specifications say "Linux compatible". Go for it!

I have always prefered external modems, One thing is that the os just has to access the serial port, I also like the lights on the modem.

I don't know why internal would be better but I could be wrong. External is much easier to change computers with. If you need to do that.

I have tried US robotics and Motorola ModemSurfr and both work great.

Just to add to this. As far as I know, all external modems that hook up via serial will work with no questions asked in Linux.

I think that your last post is exactly true, the only thing is I bought a ActionTec external call waiting 56k modem (serial) and they thing would never work with linux. The company even though it says it works with linux, wouldn't even provide the simplist of tech support lol All that it would say when i clicked on pppd was "waiting for connection" but never actually dialed or anything

You may be able to switch it to dumb mode, you can with the us robotics external smart modems. The call waiting feature indicates to me it is a so called smart modem.