I would like to get the internal software modem on my Inspiron 300m up and running under Mandrake Linux 9.1, and I've downloaded a few drivers to try out. The bottom of the unit says it has a Broadcom BCM9415M modem inside, and lspci says this for the modem:

00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corp. 82801DB AC'97 Modem (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [Generic])
Subsystem: Broadcom Corporation: Unknown device 4d64
Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping-
SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort-
<MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 0
Interrupt: pin B routed to IRQ 10
Region 0: I/O ports at 2400 [size=256]
Region 1: I/O ports at 2000 [size=128]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=375mA PME(D0+,D1-,D2-,D3hot+,D3cold+)
Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

I think the one that has the best hope is one from Dell for a Broadcom modem that is here.
Intel of course has drivers, but I have not had initial success there and I'm frankly not sure which chipset to select at their site. (P.S. Any insight there would be appreciated as well)

I cannot get the Broadcom driver to install successfully. I can get it to compile, using some hacks like this one, I managed to get it to build a workable .spec for my kernel by issuing this command:

make rpm RPM_KERNELS=`uname -r` KERNEL_DIR=/usr/src

Then I copied the .tar.gz file to /usr/src/RPM/SOURCES and issued rpm -ba BCMSM-3.9.14.spec. It built both source and binary RPM. When installing, this is the output:


[root@nala i586]# rpm -Uvh BCMSM-3.4.19-6.i586.rpm
Preparing... ########################################### [100%]
1:BCMSM ########################################### [100%]
mknod: wrong number of arguments
Try `mknod --help' for more information.
chmod: failed to get attributes of `/dev/ttySMconfig': No such file or directory

So, something must be wrong in the %post script of the .spec file. I looked there and it uses an init script to create the /dev node on bootup. The init script follows this message. I cannot figure out how it decides the major/minor numbers of the node. I am not very knowledgeable in that area and I would appreciate any insight into this problem. Forgive me if I went on too long here!

# BCMSM init.d script for RedHat
# Copyright (C) 2000 Broadcom Corporation. All rights reserved.
#
# chkconfig: 12345 99 1
# description: BCM V.92 56K Modem

. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions

function manage_nodes()
{
# $1 - DEVICE
# $2 - CREATE/REMOVE
create=$2
if [ -z $create ]; then
create="0"
fi
if [ -e /proc/tty/drivers ]; then
MINOR_MATCH_PATTERN=^.*/dev/$1[[:space:]]*[[:digit:]]*[[:space:]]*
MINOR_LIST=`egrep "$MINOR_MATCH_PATTERN" /proc/tty/drivers | sed
"s#$MINOR_MATCH_PATTERN\([0-9\-]*\).*#\1#"`
MINOR_START=`echo $MINOR_LIST | sed 's/\([0-9]*\).*/\1/'`
MINOR_END=`echo $MINOR_LIST | sed 's/\([0-9]*\)-\([0-9]*\).*/\2/'`
else
MINOR_START="0"
MINOR_END="0"
fi
for suffix in "" "audio" "eye" "log" "status"; do
if [ ! -z $suffix ]; then
devname=$1"_"$suffix
else
devname=$1
fi

major=`egrep "$devname$" /proc/devices | sed 's/\([0-9]*\) .*/\1/'`
if [ ! -z $major ]; then
for ((minor=($MINOR_START); ($minor <= $MINOR_END);
minor=($minor + 1))) ; do
devnode=/dev/ttySM$suffix$minor
if [ -e $devnode ]; then
rm -f $devnode
fi
if [ $create = "1" ]; then
mknod $devnode c $major $minor
chmod 666 $devnode
fi
done
fi
done
suffix="config"
devname=$1"_"$suffix
major=`egrep "$devname$" /proc/devices | sed 's/\([0-9]*\) .*/\1/'`
minor=0
devnode=/dev/ttySM$suffix
if [ -e $devnode ]; then
rm -f $devnode
fi
if [ $create = "1" ]; then
mknod $devnode c $major $minor
chmod 666 $devnode
fi
}

if [ ! -e /proc/devices ]; then
exit 0
fi

DEVICE=BCMSM
KERNEL_VERSION=`uname -r`
MODULE_DIR=`echo /lib/modules/$KERNEL_VERSION`


case "$1" in
start)
gprintf "Starting %s: " "$DEVICE"

gprintf "%s " "$DEVICE"

if [ ! -f $MODULE_DIR/modules.dep ]; then
depmod -a
fi

modprobe $DEVICE 2>/dev/null

manage_nodes $DEVICE 1

if [ -e /dev/ttySMconfig ]; then
if [ -f /etc/$DEVICE.conf ]; then
cat /etc/$DEVICE.conf > /dev/ttySMconfig
fi
fi

echo

touch /var/lock/subsys/$DEVICE

;;
stop)
gprintf "Shutting down %s: " "$DEVICE"

if lsmod | grep -q $DEVICE; then
gprintf "%s " "$DEVICE"
if [ -e /dev/ttySMconfig ]; then
cat /dev/ttySMconfig > /etc/$DEVICE.conf
fi

manage_nodes $DEVICE 0

rmmod $DEVICE
fi

echo

rm -f /var/lock/subsys/$DEVICE

;;
restart|reload)
$0 stop
$0 start
;;
*)
gprintf "Usage: start {start|stop|restart|reload}\n"
exit 1
esac

exit 0

I have recently installed RH9 on an Inspiron 5150.

I also have the same problem as you had. I can't seem to be able to clear the mknod errors when I write, "service BCMSM start".

Any help on this will be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I gave up on that modem a while ago. I read somewhere that Dell tech support told someone that the BCMSM driver was compatible with the 300m's modem, but I am pretty sure it's not. For one thing, the model numbers are completely different. Also, insmod says "init_module: no such device", which is exactly what it would say when it couldn't find the device it was intended for. I don't think it's worth it to pull my hair out over that thing when it may not even work in the end. I went out and bought a compatible PCMCIA modem.