This is my first install of Linux Mandrake, I've been having some difficulty getting Linux to recognize my modem. It is a US Robotics Hardware controller based modem supported by Mandrake.

I tried setserial but after creating the link and everything, kppp will not find the modem when queried.

I tried using the MAKEDEV command in the shell, but it says the device already exists, but still Kppp will not find it when queried. So I remove it and try to re-add it, but the shell gives me an error: file already exists.

I've had linux up and running for three months but I can't get on the internet, this is really frustrating.

You may have to tell kppp where your modem is connected, try opening kppp and clicking on the setup button then in the configuration box click the device tab, theres a dropdown for modem device... /dev/modem, /dev/ttyS0 ect...

i tried to select the modem from the list in Kppp, but when it queries it says modem not found???

The usr 5610b installs on ttyS4. If /dev/modem is not a symlink to /dev/ttyS4, delete it and
ln -s /dev/ttyS4 /dev/modem.
Now you can tell kppp to query /dev/modem.

This is exactly the info I need, but unfortunately I have no clue how to "delete it". I'm a total newbie who installed five days ago and I have been fighting the modem problem ever since. When I do "ln -s /dev/ttyS4 /dev/modem" it tells me "file exists" so I assume you mean delete /dev/modem. But just how do I do that? I mean, what is the command for delete?

rm /dev/modem or better yet [...I didn't think about it at the time],
ln -sf /dev/ttyS4 /dev/modem ...where the added "f" switch will "force" the new file to overwrite the old one.

On a side note, once you know a command, man <command> or <command> --help, in a console, will bring loads of usefull info.

...HTH