I currently use Fedora Core 4 on my laptop, and everything works perfectly (kind of surprisingly, actually), except for my dialup modem. The computer has an internal modem, but *sigh* it 'tis a Winmodem, which becomes a problem I've become unwilling to deal with since I removed the Win from my computer. However, I'm still tied to dialup access. I purchased an external modem that connected through a parallel connector on the back of the computer, but it isn't recognized. I'm not sure if it's the computer or the modem since I found out that it doesn't work under Win2k either, but I don't have the money to throw around buying countless controller-included modems. USB devices work for me good, so I've decided to get a USB external modem until I can get to college where I can use my ethernet to hit their high-speed network. However, I don't have a clue of what to look for. Any ideas? I want something that works with the 2.6.11 kernel.

Personally I think you would be better off getting a serial (RS232) modem. I owned two a few years ago, that worked with every Linux distribution that I tried.

In my experience, very few PCMCIA modems are Winmodems. There is a compatibility list on this site. Basically, keep an eye out for modems that have the computer chip with the green background, those are modems will full hardware support. The one problem with PCMCIA modems is that it's so damn easy to misplace the dongle.

Other than that, a serial modem would absolutely work. I have never heard of one that doesn't.