I am trying to set up my dialup access to MSN Internet. After buying (and returning) a usb modem, I bought a pci modem. Put it in, come to find out, great, it's a softmodem. Well, after playing with it last night, and way too many adult beverages, I can now get it to dial up. Don't ask me how. I can't recall, it was late. I dl'ed the driver from novell, I taught myself how to install a package, and all seems great and fine. NOT!! By the way, I am using SUSE 8.1 professional w/K2.4.19-4GB on an older gateway with a 733 cpu. Began life as a Windows ME machine(I am now sure there is a hell) Anyways, ran ifconfig, got a trial (free) modem driver from Novell, installed it(another late, blurry night), but don't want to buy the version unless I can get it to connect to MSN. ONly switched because local dial-up got me 20k at best. I love living in the sticks, but there is no cable, no dsl, only satellite. I can only get that in late July, I am told. So please help. So, how can I connect to MSN? I have tried kPPP and Kinternet. Kppp dials, connects, hangs, repeats. Kinternet dials, connects, trys to authenticate, fails, and disconnects. What to do. I nearly cried when I walked into CompUSA and could not find a SINGLE pci modem that did not have windows on it. Only an external that cost $80. (Wife threw the yellow flag). Please help. I am using a USR 5660a. Help me!!! I need to get online without window$. Thanks, Jason (By the way, I have been all over linmodems.org and linuxquestions.org and have found nothing)

After further thought, this may help. I remember that after I ran the rpm (that said it would create a /dev/modem/...it didn't) I manually made a /dev/modem/ and copied my rpm there. How damaging could this be? It was only after doing this that I could get my modem to dial. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Don't do this. What you see in the /dev directory aren't files, these are references to devices. I guess it can't do much damage (worst thing I can think of is that an application writes into the file(s) you copied there, which the file will not survive), but it certainly won't work to copy the rpm to /dev/modem. Remove it with - painfully accurate typing, or else or /dev may be gone! - rm -R /dev/modem (use TAB for auto-completion).
Since Kinternet can access the modem (since it dials), this may not be the problem, although I don't have a clue as to what the problem may be. There is another dial-up program, wvdial, you could try this one. It's a console program, relatively verbose. Configuration usually to be found in /etc/wvdial.conf. Also see man wvdial.

Concerning /dev/modem:
Possibility 1: The installer has set up something in /dev, but falsely reported it as /dev/modem, while it's /dev/winmodem or something. Try to find out which files were altered last with ls (see ls --help, man ls), or in your favourite gui. If you find anything which you suspect to be your device, do a
chmod +770 /dev/<name_of_the_file>
ln -snf /dev/<name_of_the_file> /dev/modem

Possibility 2: The installer could not access /dev (unlikely, but if you did not run the rpm as root, do it).


HTH