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I just upgraded from RH7.3 to RH9 and ran into trouble.
1) My internal modem, which is listed as a GTW v.92 Voicemodem under my windows partition, and was working (although it would hang up intermittently) under RH7.3 is not even recognized by RH9 anymore. If I type cat /proc/pci, I get:
Bus 2, device 2, function 0:
Modem: Broadcom Corporation BCM v.90 56k modem (rev 0).
IRQ 9.
Master capable. Latency = 64
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xfeaff000 [0xfeafffff]
I/O at 0xdc00 [0xdc0f]
So there is something there, but if I run the Internet configuration wizard, it probes for a modem and comes back with "no modem was found". Under windows, the modem is in COM3, and I tried
setserial /dev/ttyS2 uart 16550A port 0xdc00 irq 9
but that didn't help. I also installed drivers for the BCM modem which I found at the dell website (although the latest drivers are for RH7.3) but that didn't help either.
2) The printer, which also was working under RH7.3, doesn't work anymore. It's a Samsung ML-1430. I've re-installed the drivers, re-installed CUPS 1.1.18. I can then run the Samsung printer configuration tool which came with the printer and everythings looks fine, with the printer assigned to /dev/lp0. If I send something to the printer using "lp", I can see it in the queue using "lpq", but nothing comes out and the lights on the printer never flash. If I try to create a new queue from the "system settings->printing" menu I can't find the drivers when I get to the "Queue Type" screen, even though I just installed them.
I'v had this problem with the printer before, when I've run up2date, but re-installing CUPS, the drivers and re-creating the queue has gotten it to work again in the past. This time nothing seems to work.
If anyone has any suggestions about how to better diagnose or fix these two problems, I would be very grateful. At this point I'm out of my depth, and out of ideas.
In all probability your modem is a winmodem,and if this is the case you will have to search for drivers for it.When you get the drivers,load them as modules then run wvdialconf /etc/wvdial.conf
This will then find your modem.It will be something like /dev/ttySLTO,not /dev/ttyS2.Run setserial with the new /dev/xxxx.
You might then have to symlink /dev/xxxx to /dev/modem.
Unfortunately the most current version of the drivers I could find for my modem are for RH7.3. I tried re-installing them first by removing the old drivers (with "rpm -e" on the drivers' rpm package) and re-installing them.
I didn't get any error messages and everything looked fine on the surface, except that the /dev/ttySM0 node that had been there before, and linked to /dev/modem was no longer there. But the driver install had still created a new link from /dev/modem to /dev/ttySM0.
I have a nasty feeling that these drivers, which worked fine with RH7.3, were not designed to work with RH9. It's also possible I've done something stupid (but hopefully fixable).
Any suggestions about this or the printer problem?
As always, I appreciate the help and I thank you in advance.
Ok, this printer problem is starting to drive me nuts!
I've just noticed that if I type
echo "anything" > /dev/lp0
my printer comes alive (doesn't print anything of course but it starts whirring, and the Data light flashes). If I try something like
cat test.ps > /dev/lp0
that too seems to get its attention, but nothing prints. I have installed the latest drivers for ML-1430 from the Samsung website.
Now if I try to set up the queue using printtool (alias printconf), I make sure to tell it that it's a locally-connected printer, attached to /dev/lp0. There is no device driver for the ML-1430, so I select the one for the ML-1200. I apply the changes, but when I try to print a test page using printtool, the printer never shows any signs of life, and instead I get a dialog box popping up with the message
lpr: unable to print file: client-error-not-found
Does anyone understand why this is happening?
Thank you in advance for any advice you might have.
Have a look at /lib/modules/ver. Redhat/ to see if both drivers are there.
If they are there, run insmod -f driver (lt_serial.o and lt_modem.0)or whatever they are in your system.
If all has gone well,run lsmod just to make sure that the modules have been loaded.
Second thoughts,try lsmod first and if they are there you could try out my first posting.I used the drivers for Mandrake 9.1 (Lucent pci modem) in Yoper and they worked just fine.
First, thank you all for your continued help. I've put your suggestions to work. I'm not quite there yet, but I think I'm bracketing the source of the problem(s).
1) The printer:
=========
ehdwuld, I tried restarting the lpd as root as you suggested, and this happened:
[root@localhost root]# chkconfig cups-lpd off
[root@localhost root]# service lpd start
Starting lpd: Warning - lp: 'no :rm, :lp, or :sv entry'
Warning - lp: Bad printcap entry - missing 'sd' or 'client' entry?
[ OK ]
So I tried to list the printcap file which I could see by the timestamp was generated when I installed the printer drivers, and I found this:
[root@localhost root]# more /etc/printcap
# This file was automatically generated by cupsd(8) from the
# /etc/cups/printers.conf file. All changes to this file
# will be lost.
lp:
That's all. So I looked at the /etc/cups/printers.conf file:
[root@localhost root]# more /etc/cups/printers.conf
# Printer configuration file for CUPS v1.1.18
# Written by cupsd on Thu 02 Oct 2003 12:52:26 AM GMT
<DefaultPrinter lp>
Info Samsung ML-1430 Series (SPL)
DeviceURI parallel:/dev/lp0
State Idle
Accepting Yes
JobSheets none none
QuotaPeriod 0
PageLimit 0
KLimit 0
</Printer>
Am I doing something obviously wrong? Should there be more information in these configuration files?
2) The modem
========
lachlan, just to be sure I went back removed and re-installed the drivers, that way I could look at the timestamp on the various files and know they were created during the installation process. After installing the drives, I did an lsmod and got this
which doesn't look very promising as far as the modem goes, but I must confess there are plenty of entries I can't identify. Just to be sure, I looked at all the devices with the appropriate timestamp that were created when I installed the drivers. I found:
[root@localhost root]# ls -tpal /dev/ | more
total 360
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 5, 2 Oct 1 18:03 ptmx
drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 118784 Oct 1 18:01 ./
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 Oct 1 18:01 modem -> /dev/ttySM0
but no actual device /dev/ttySM0. I also looked in /lib/modules/2.4.20-6, corresponding to my latest RH9 install and got:
Hi newbix,
This is probably a stupid question,have you tried running locate or whereis to see if you can find your drivers.Your /lib/modules/----- should have another folder in it,mines is ltmodem and it contains the drivers.
thanks for the suggestion. I've tried to track down the drivers. According to the readme file that comes with the rpm install for the drivers, the kernel module should be copied to /lib/modules/*/misc, and indeed if I look in the old directory for the 2.4.18 kernel I find an old BCMSM.o file that was created presumably when I installed the modem under RH7.3 (the timestamp on the file is Jul 2002). There is no /lib/modules/2.4.20-6*/misc directory, and locate BCMSM.o only shows the file under the old directories.
Also, the readme file for the modem installation says that a shell script called /etc/init.d/BCMSM should be created, but the timestamp on that is also July 2002. However fresh symbolic links to that file were created in the directories /etc/rc.d/rc[12345].d/S99BCMSM, as stated in the readme file, so I know something happened.
To get a better sense of what was happening during the installation, I removed the package and re-installed the rpm with the -vv flag. I'm pasting the ouput below (sorry it's a bit long, but maybe something will jump out). What disturbs me a bit in that ouptut is that I see references to the old kernel in lines like " + '[' 2.4.20-6 == 2.4.18-3 ']' ", I don't speak rpm-ese but that looks fishy to me. I wouldn't have expected to see those references since I'm doing a clean install under 2.4.20-6.
I'm not feeling very optimistic about this right now, but I welcome all ideas and I'm very grateful for the help. Thanks, and cheers.
Partial success! I've managed to get my printer working. This whole time I'd been trying to configure my printer using printtool as a locally-connected printer. This never worked no matter what I tried: LPRng just refuses to work right for me.
Out of desperation, I tried using CUPS instead. I wanted to do this before, but I always got confused in printtool when asked for the server name and queue path, since my printer is hooked up to the back of my computer, and not to some remote server. After doing a little bit of reading, I figured how to do this right (which I'll now summarize for the sake of other newbies like me).
I brought up mozilla and went to http://localhost:631,
this brings up the administration interface, I selected Printers from the top bar, and my Samsung printer was already there. It doesn't have quite the right driver: I had chosen the driver for the ML-1200 from within printtool earlier, and this is what it's using, but it prints just fine.
The last thing I had to do was to run redhat-switch-printer (or go to the system settings->more system settings->switch printers menu) and select CUPS instead of LPRng. I've been able to print both text and postscript beautifully.
Cool! Many thanks to everyone who participated!
As an aside, I did a search on google for LPRng vs. CUPS under RH9 and I've come across statements that the two don't coexist peacefully on the same machine and people having to remove one or the other to get their printer to work.
I have virtually an identical problem i.e modem connects but hangs up frequently.Did you manage to get it working because i think it would help my cause.
Cheers.
Unfortunately I never did solve that problem. In fact part of my motivation for moving to RH9 was to see if the modem would behave a little bit better. If I can get my modem working again(hopefully in the next couple of weeks) then either 1) the modem will work fine, in which case upgrading to RH9 is one answer, or 2) I'll still have the same problem and I'll start working on a way to fix it. If I come up with anything, I'll post it under the old thread.
In any case it's nice to know I'm not the only one who was having the problem.
I'm very close to getting back on the net, my modem now works, but I can't go to any websites or check mail or anything. I suspect I've forgotten something and I'm hoping someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong. But first, here's what I had to do to get the modem working:
The drivers I had been using for my modem really were meant for RH7.3 and will not work without some modification. Luckily, I found the necessary files and instructions on how to build a new rpm specifically for my kernel at http://www.cacs.louisiana.edu/~cxg9789/BCMSM/
Following the instructions in the READ_ME file, I ran into a problem when I got an "Installed (but unpackaged) file(s) found" error message which terminated the build of the rpm. In order to get around that, I found help at http://www.rpm.org/hintskinks/unpackaged-files/
Basically, I had to insert the line "%define _unpackaged_files_terminate_build 0" at the top of the .spec.template file. After that the new rpm's were generated without errors and I was able to install the drivers normally. FANTASTIC!
Now I can dial into my ISP, with KPPP or with vwdial. If I've got the KPPP log window open I can see that the CONNECT signal is received, I can bring up the KPPP details viewer and watch the graph of packets going in and out, everything seems fine. But if I bring up mozilla or netscape or a mailer program, nothing happens. For example, if I enter a website name in mozilla, it justs sits there and eventually times out.
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