I am setting up a Linux machine for a friend but she only has dial-up, can anybody recomend a modem that is fairly easy to get working. I'm using Mandrake 10.1 on a 600mhz pentium 3.

Tony.

Welcome to LQ!

I was recently in the States with only dial-up available,
and bought a Creative Labs serial modem from Fry's.
With Slackware it was detected and was easily setup
with kppp. Actually any serial modem should work
easily and give you good results if the serial port is
working.

Browse through the LQ Hardware Compatability List
to see what others have used.

Thanks for the fast responses. I think I found what I needed. Gotta love this site, this was my first post here and I got answers within minutes.

Thanks,
Tony.

Tony,

In order to help others who search and find this thread,
please post back which modem you use, how you got it
to work, and with which distribution of Linux so that when
they read your thread they'll learn something.

I'll do that, I should have it within a week.

Tony.

Hi. I got the modem today and I'm pretty sure the system sees it. When I go into KPPP and click on query modem it says "modem ready" and a status bar goes up to 100% and it lists ATI 1-7 with blank spaces next to each one. Now if somebody could give me some pointers on setting up an Earthlink account on this machine using KPPP I would appreciate it. By the way the modem is a US Robotics 56K Performance Pro Model 5610B. I have Mandrake 10.1

Thanks,
Tony.

Actually what I need to know is if I will be able to hear it try to dial out because I don't have a phone line I can hook it up to. If not I will need to bring it to another location.

Tony.

To setup the modem, open KPPP and then click on the Configure tab.
Then you must choose New to add an account, and a phone number.
After you do that click OK until you're back at the main KPPP window.
Enter your Login ID and Password for Earthlink if you haven't already
done so, and then click on Connect.

I was recently in the States and used a modem this way. However,
I used a standard ISP which didn't require that I use any special
software. You should be able to get this information from Earthlink.

You can't test whether a modem dials without a line.

In the LQ Linux HCL many guys got this modem to work and say it's great.

Thanks for the reply. We have VOIP and its not supposed to work with dialup but I just plugged in a laptop and it got a dialtone and dialed but if the linux machine was dialing I didn't hear it, i also hooked a phone to the modem and didn't hear anything. Any ideas? Keep in mind I'm a beginner and not really familiar with the command line.

Tony.

Not familiar with VOIP. For the Linux machine to dial,
you must give it a number to dial. Just as if you pick
up the phone to call your friend - if your line is working,
you'll get a dial tone. If you don't enter a number, it
can't possibly dial and make a connection between the
two of you.

Use the KPPP info I gave you. Call your ISP and ask
them for the local access number. And of course, you
must have your Login ID and Password.

Search LQ and Google <Linux> for more info...

I'm sorry I didn't mention I have the all the info for the isp and have it set up in kppp. VOIP is Voice Over IP, it means our phone works over our cable internet, we don't have a landline.(check out www.vonage.com ) The pc I'm working on belongs to a friend. My problem is that I have a friend that knows linux in and out but if he finds out that the computer belongs to his ex-girlfriend he'll never help me fix it, he'd rather her suffer with windows and all the spyware she always gets on her machine. I looked at that link you sent and some of the info might be helpful. I'm going to work on it tomorrow. I downloaded a driver that will hopefully be the fix I need. I was just reading that it may be a problem with Mandrake, seems like people with other distro's have no problems and the modem works right out of the box. I would appreciate any other pointers you might have but if not I thank you for your fast responses.

Tony.

Tony,

Try to post any error messages you get.

Your thread has gotten 112 views, but since I'm the only
one who responded, either they don't know any more than
I'm telling you, or perhaps, they don't want to spend a lot
of time just asking you questions.

If kppp isn't dialing out, then you should get some type of
error message.

I'm also not real familiar with troubleshooting modems, as
I use ADSL here. You might also search our Mandrake
forum, since other Mandrake users had a problem with it.

Have you contacted Earthlink? I don't know how good
their techs are, and most techs don't know anything about
Linux. But if you have a dual boot and can get it working
in Windoze, then it should work in Linux. Especially if you
have Mandrake recognizing the modem.

Look at this link for some more help. Phil has a whole lot
of links and I believe he has some modem stuff. Scroll
down to # Modem and connection troubleshooting

Post back with your progress...

Thats just it, I'm not getting any error messeges, when I try to dial out it says "modem ready" then it says "initializing" but thats as far as it gets.

Tony.

Hi, I was able to get the modem working the other day. I went to http://www.usr.com/support/product-t...asp?prod=5610b and downloaded the driver located at the bottom of the page after installing that I went back to "configure my computer" then clicked network & internet/new connection and set it up there then I reconfigured kppp and I was on. Before I did all that I was curious to see if it would work out of the box on another distro so I booted the pc with a Suse Live disc in the drive and the modem worked on the first try so if anybody can't get it working with Mandrake and feels like giving up you should have no problem doing it in Suse if you don't mind changeing distro's.

Tony.