After finally curing the sound problems I was having, I decided to have a go at sorting out the modem.

Basically lspci -v gives me an almost identical output to the listing here:

http://pctelcompdb.sourceforge.net/v...s.php?id_no=75

In fact virtually the only difference is the listing for subsystem, which reads "CLEVO/KAPOK" on mine.

I downloaded the PCTEL-0.9.6 drivers and followed the instructions in the mini-HOWTO. Using the option

./configure --with-hal=sis

everything went fine, ran make and make install (as su), inserted the modules in the correct order, tried minicom.

After a bit of faffing got to the Initializing Modem screen then on the screen following I see:

• Welcome to minicom 2.00.0
  
  Options: History Buffer, F-Key Macros, Search History Buffer, I18n
  Compiled on Jul 27 2002, 17:54:50.
  
  Press CTRL-A Z for help on special keys

Underneath that is a non-blinking cursor, and that console is locked.

If I run minicom as a normal user, instead of as su it tells me that it "Cannot create lockfile. Sorry"

Running minicom -s I made sure that it was using /dev/modem which is symlinked to ttyS15 as it's supposed to be. Also tried kppp which tells me the modem is busy.

Went through the suggested response in the mini-HOWTO:

First tried to rmmod the modem modules, it allows me to rmmod ptserial, but claims that pctel is in use.

Rebooted, checked the modules weren't inserted, ran through the whole mknod business, tried again with kppp etc, still no luck.

Installed wvdial, tried that, got the following messages:

--> Can't read config file /etc/wvdial.conf: No such file or directory
--> WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.42
--> Warning: section [Dialer Defaults] does not exist in wvdial.conf
--> Cannot open /dev/modem: Input/output error
--> Cannot open /dev/modem: Input/output error
--> Cannot open /dev/modem: Input/output error

Also tried removing the sound modules (i810_audio, soundcore and ac97_codec) before starting kppp, wvdial and minicom but had no luck that way either.

Anybody got any suggestions where I'm going wrong?

Sorry for the long post but it saves me time if somebody asks me to try something I've already tried.

Cheers.
Amos.

have you checked to see whether /var /lock/LCK...ttyS15 or /var/lock/LCK..modem exists, if so remove them.

Have you tried inserting the module with the IRQ parameter set?

What distro are you using?

/var/lock contains one folder called "subsys" which itself contains 27 files, 26 of which are empty documents and one "dm" which contains the single reference: 1060.

What value do you suggest for the irq?

Its Mandrake 9.0 but with a 2.4.20 kernel patched for acpi support and with apm disabled.

IRQ 11? Did you compile the sound into the kernel or as modules. If you compiled it into the kernel, that may have caused some locking issues which wuldn't allow the pctel driver to get access to the hardware.