wow. i just googled it, and "no gcc in suse 9.1 personal comes up everywhere".
i'd be downloading ftp packages from the pro version if i were you, but that would be a lot of work. i guess i would download the gcc package and try to install it, then it would tell me what dependencies i needed, then i would download those and so on.

man...that's sad. at first i thought you were just being stupid mdmcginn, but now i feel very bad for you...
no gcc is a real bummer.
sorry.

That sounds like a bad move for SuSE if true.

I know there was a version of Mandrake that I won hear a few years ago and it had 3 more disks than the down load version, but including such things as a bunch of winmodem drivers, Open Office, some commercial software, etc. My downloaded version, all I had to do was urpmi gcc once I had urpmi configured.

I would think that GCC would be an essential package for any distro.

That would be a feature that would make me less likely to advise trying SuSE, even though it is thought to be beginner friendly.

Yeah, no need to go through those guys. No reason to pay him money if open source can handle the load. I've little regard if he can't foot the bill. He should move on to something else. I suspect he'll be out of business before long.

i'd love to write my own drivers for this modem!
but sadly i have a job and need to help provide for my family, but perhaps i can anyhow...

Well I got my hcfmodem driver working on 2.4 kernel but I wont be upgrading to the 2.6 kernel until I am sure I can get a driver of r my 56k modem.

This is so lame. I think I will go back to cable isp.

Anyways, I think the logical next step is to find a crack for the linuxtant 2.6 drivers. I am assuming since it asks you for an e-mail and then the "registration key" it is apparent that there is a logical algorithm tied between the email address and the key. Perhaps someone with a robust development background can crack the damn thing. Write a key-gen like they do for all the popular windows appz.

Any programmers among us?

i'm a programmer. but i'd prefer not to do "illegal" things if i don't have to. that's why i bought a serial modem. but i will continue to support my peeps in the same boat i was in. it's especially important for noobs, because when they are explained the nature of open source, the last thing you want to have to do is: "oh, but you have to pay for your modem drivers, otherwise you can't use the internet" thing....that's just retarded...

I'm not interested in cracking the work of a Linux kernel developer. The guy has done a lot for free as it is. If somebody wants to crack something, try again to reverse-engineer Conexant's drivers. Or ask your computer vendor to buy a Linux driver for you. Or buy another modem.

Jimbo99, I still think you misunderstand. There is no open source alternative to their drivers. Marc Boucher at Linuxant has been working on a free driver for years. But he finally decided they needed to license technology from Conexant to do the job right. I think we'd be in the same situation with Nvidia if they hadn't finally provided free Linux drivers themselves. Conexant won't do that. Besides, Linuxant is not the only open source vendor that charges for products. So do PHP (Zend Accelerator) and MySQL (MaxDB). I don't think any of these companies will be out of business before long.

Anyway, just as promised, Linuxant emailed me that the new driver was available, I installed it in SUSE, and it works great. I now have a working modem for less than $15, which is less than I could get a PCI modem for (including shipping). So I'm happy.

good thread. Though I have noticed it going in circles when reading the whole thing.

I also came across the 5.03 tar ball source from searching the web, I dare say from someone here putting online.

I have compiled the 5.03 but running hsfconfig returns errors the same errors anybody attempting the same thing of fedora core 1 which is what I run. When you point to the kernel source I get errors and they are written to a log which says....

/tmp/hcfpciconfig-buildlog.txt

../modules/kernelcompiler.sh: using gcc; cannot find compiler matching:
../modules/kernelcompiler.sh: gcc version 3.2.3 20030422 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.3-6)
rm -f *.o *.a
../../modules/kernelcompiler.sh: using gcc; cannot find compiler matching:
../../modules/kernelcompiler.sh: gcc version 3.2.3 20030422 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.3-6)
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/lib/hcfpci/modules/osspec'
rm -f *.o *.a
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/lib/hcfpci/modules/osspec'
* compiling (gcc) mod_osspec.c
make -C osspec all
../../modules/kernelcompiler.sh: using gcc; cannot find compiler matching:
../../modules/kernelcompiler.sh: gcc version 3.2.3 20030422 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.3-6)
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/lib/hcfpci/modules/osspec'
* compiling (gcc) osstdio.c
* compiling (gcc) osnvm.c
* compiling (gcc) osresour.c
* compiling (gcc) osservices.c
* compiling (gcc) osstring.c
ar cr libosspec.a osstdio.o osnvm.o osresour.o osservices.o osstring.o
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/lib/hcfpci/modules/osspec'
> linking kernel module hcfpciosspec.o

* compiling (gcc) mod_engine.c
> linking kernel module hcfpciengine.o

* compiling (gcc) serial_hcf.c
In file included from serial_hcf.c:943:
serial_core.c: In function `uart_close':
serial_core.c:1073: error: invalid operands to binary ==
make: *** [serial_hcf.o] Error 1

I actually copied this from a post gengis made. But its the same error but with hsf instead of the hcf.

Further more I downloaded the 14.4 driver and it works(it was so wonderful having linux connect) and moreover I present a new scenario my modem is built into my dell m60 and I'm not going to cart around another modem as an alternative.

My 2cents on the thread topic. I believe that the guy making the driver does have the right to charge for the time he is spending writing code that slack@ss conexant won't do. Winmodems are a joke but in this case I have no choice. I will probably pay but I am poor and should not have to pay again for something I already payed for. You hear that dell!

thanks guys, great thread

so whats everyone's opinion on the linux driver serial code hacks ?
counter productive to the linux revolution ?
or just a hey... its 10x worse with other OS's

You mean the snake search hack for the free 14.4 restricted driver?

If so I could not find it....

The soloution is to buy real hardware and put the wincrap on e-bay (or give it away to sombody or file 13 it). There are suckers that do buy non-real hardware pushed by monopolies born every minute.

P. T. Barnum was incorrect. There are several suckers born every minute, not just one.

An external serial port modem is the cheapest headache relief for Conexant/Rockwell modems

I got it to work fairly easily, but it filled my /var partition with all it's error messages, plus it was slow, took 4-8 tries to get a good connection, etc.

I just looked and there are 3 in my junkbox that anyone that wants it can have it gratus. The next apartment cleaning and they will be in the dumpster.

Right, I'm now running hsfconfig, but it stops after a cetain point in the process.

I'll try and write out the full process next time I boot into linux. It just ends at that point. As it states there, I'm running Kernel 2.4.22-10 on Mandrake 9.2, using the hsflinmodem-5.03.27lnxbeta rpm file.

It probably needs an older or newer kernel than what you are running.

Usually you can find an rpm that fits your kernel, but you may have to subscribe to the Mandrake site.

I am so glad my first Linux decision was to toss the modem and get me a external serial port modem

About 6 series of rebooting back and forth to check on something on the 'net caused my first modem purchase.

See if you can find the package that matches exactly your running kernel and you may have to install kernel-source as well.

Well, here's the full terminal session which I just copied and pasted into Kedit.

Although I've just noticed the full filename now of the RPM file...

hsflinmodem-5.03.27lnxbeta03042700k2.4.21_0.13mdk-1mdk.i586.rpm

Does this mean I have to downgrade the kernel to 2.4.21_0.13? Thanks in advance.