I am helping my brother install Mandrake 10.1 while his computer is home over winter college break. His computer has both an ethernet card and a modem. I set up Mandrake 10.1 and it detected the ethernet card no problem. However, when the computer goes back to college his computer will only have dial-up access and this is where the modem comes into the picture . . .

I believe the modem is pci . . . knowing my luck it is probably a winmodem. But before I get to that issue I need to find the modem in Linux.

I tried to follow Finegan's instruction to paste the output of /sbin/lspci but when I typed "/sbin/lspci" into the console it said the file didn't exist. I went to look for it myself via Konqueror and I couldn't find any lspci file in the /sbin directory myself. What gives?

Since /sbin/lspci didn't seem to work I am stuck. How do I find the modem? I did dmesg but I am not sure where/if the modem is showing up. There were several lines mentioning pci, but I'm not sure they were related to the modem.

Any help would be much appreciated. I am not a real techie so sometimes obvious things need to be explained to me.

Finegan's instructions say to include the kernal. Output from uname -r is:

2.6.8.1-12mdk

Thanks for any help.

there is a good chance you won't get a pci modem working in linux. if there is a computer store that sells used hardware look at getting a hardware modem (isa) assuming your moboard has an isa slot. or if you have a windows computer, connect to the internet using that then setup internet connection sharing and then you will be able to get online in linux (assuming the computers are netwroked together)

I realize there is a good chance I won't get the modem working. I just thought I would try. If I could determine exactly what modem I have I could then search the internet to see if their happens to be a Linux driver that could make the modem work. This is why I was looking for instructions on how to locate the modem in the Linux system.

Sharing an internet connection is not an option for my brother once he returns to college. Installing an isa card is possible--but maybe so is convincing my brother that he should shell out $40 for the cable service that would solve all his problems. But before suggesting either of these options to him I would like to try to get the modem he has working--or at least know that doing so is impossible.

Thanks.

can you pull the modem out and give us the numbers off of it?
$40 isn't bad at all.USR makes hardware pci modems that work w/linux,as would an external serial modem,but you get what you pay for......and hardware modems are high$$ for such low speed.

The kernel probably dosen't have the pci listings. Pop in Knoppix, which I know is pci listing enabled and run lspci again. Enjoy.

Thanks for both replies.

Travers . . . thanks for the information on why the lspci didn't work. The fact that I couldn't get that to work was really bugging me. I don't have Knoppix right now so I will have to burn myself an iso. But is there any chance I could easily get lspci onto my mandrak 10.1 system?

Piscikeeper--I can pull out the modem if necessary, but I think I got the need information just by digging up the windows stuff that originally came with the computer. So long as my information isn't incorrect the modem is:

Conxant PCI Modem Enumerator
Device Type: HCFMODEMWDM
PC99 Data/Fax/Voice

And a last bit of information that I'm not sure is helpful:

Driver for SF-1156IV/R9E (969NU)

Once I got this information I could do a bit of googling myself. I got the Conxant website. On their Modem Support FAQ there was the question "Are Modem Drivers available for the Linux operating system?" To which they said "Please refer to the modem driver assistance download page on this site for access to Linux drivers for Conexant modem devices."

They provided this link: http://www.conexant.com/support/md_d...ssistance.html

I progressed further and learned that drivers for Conxant HCF (controllerless) modems are avalible from http://www.linuxant.com/company/

I think they have a driver for my modem. Unfortunately, it looks like the free version will only run up to 14.4 and my brother will have to shell out $15 if he wants to full speed driver.

Does anyone know of another location where someone else is freely offering a driver for this modem? If not it looks like I will be going with Linuxant, unless it's driver doesn't work.

Thanks for all the help, people.

Okay, getting a little further, but have run into some trouble. Tried to download the driver but got the message "The generic package is not compatible with this system since kernel modules can't be compiled. There is also no pre-compiled package available for your kernel. Please read "Pre-compiled vs. generic packages" for more information" from the website.

So I looked up the "Pre-compiled vs. generic packages" on their website. There it said "A component required by the generic package are missing on your system. Please install the gcc package and the kernel headers in the '/usr/src/linux-2.6.8.1-12mdk' directory and try again to run this installer to use a generic package"

Okay, how do I install the gcc package and the kernel headers?

Sorry to keep piling on the questions, but I also did some more hunting around and got to http://www.linuxant.com/drivers/hcf/full/downloads.php on the website. Tried the proper download for my version of Mandrake but when I tried to install the RPM I got the error:

"error: Failed dependencies:
pciutils is needed by hcfpcimodem-1.03full_k2.6.8.1_12mdk-1mdk"

So, now it seems I need pciutils. Where and how do I get that?

Any help would be appreciated.

Ok . . . been answering a few of my own questions. Installed the pciutils rpm. Then I could install the modem rpm.

The modem rpm seemed to install good. At least, it told me it was finished installing. Information is:

Okay now my question is, how do I use the modem once it is installed. How do I use it to get on the internet?

Many thanks to anyone who has managed to follow me through all this and can bother to respond.

pciutils is what installs lspci lol. as for dialers try kppp or download gppp. there are many to choose from have you heard of google

Never used a modem under linux so I can't help anymore. But you asked: But is there any chance I could easily get lspci onto my mandrak 10.1 system? Yeah, you could recompile your kernel. =)