Red Hat 9 and SM56
 

I have just upgraded my PC to a duel boot machine by adding Red Hat 9 version 2.4.20-8 to my existing Windows 98 machine. That part all went fine.

The problem that I have is that I cannot get the internet connection to work. I have search the internet and this forum and have seen lots of items about this problem but unfortunately I am having a problem understanding the answers, primarily I think due to terminology that I am not familiar with.

My modem is a Motorola SM56 PCI 56k dialup modem which according to the Red Hat site is a certified modem.

I have gone into the Network and Modem configuration parts of RH9 and have setup my ISP so the dialup details are in place. The modem is coming up as a generic modem and I am getting the following options:-

/dev/ttys0
/dev/ttys1
/dev/ttys2
/dev/ttys3
/dev/ttl0
/dev/ttl1
/dev/ttl2
/dev/ttl2
/dev/input/ttyACM0
/dev/input/ttyACM1
/dev/input/ttyACM2
/dev/input/ttyACM3
/dev/ttyM0
/dev/ttyM1

The modem does not appear in the Hardware list (sorry not sure what part of the system that is called), where you can review what components Linux recognises.

My modem is on COM 3 under windows and I did read somewhere that this would equate to the items numbered 2 above, but I have tried them all and none of them work.

When I launch my browser the connection icon shows that I am connected when in fact its not connected at all.

The terminology that I am struggling with is ROOT, DISTRO, SHELL and what and where do I find this COMMAND LINE ?

Any help would be appreciated.

System:
Motherboard: MICROSTAR K7N2G-ILSR
Processor: ATHLON 2700XP
Memory: 1 GIGABYTE DDR PC2700 IN 2 STICKS
Operating system: WINDOWS 98SE + LINUX
Drives: MAXTOR 20G EIDE, 60G EIDE AND 120G SATA
Graphics: NVIDIA GFORCE (on motherboard)

Use one of the ttyS?
try them all, an see which one works best........
my modem is on ttyS4.........

Hi
Did you ever get this sorted out as I am having the same problem.

No !

I gave up with Linux, I have better things to do with my life and/or my computer time than waste it on what I have since come to realise is an operating system at least a decade behind Windows (and you have no idea how much it pains me to say that).

This forum was of no use at all and I'm afraid I found a lot of the people here to be somewhat imature, See my post in the general forum and you will see what I mean.

I joined a Yahoo group for Red Hat 9, it only had 66 members but I got more responces from them than I did from the thousands on this forum. Unfortunatley I was still unable to resolve the problem.

It seems the SM56 is a soft / win modem (I now realise that is what the SM stands for), and Linux does not work properly with this type. It needs a serial modem (if my understanding is correct), although it seems you can get a soft modem to work with some major software surgery. The problem is you need to know a lot about linux to do this and most newbies don't have this experience, but at the same time the modem is prehaps one of the most important items to get working.

I wish you luck.

Yeah...
i have a windows modem.... of-course its easy enough to get working if you know a little about computers.

hey... why dont you aimm your frustration at moterola... its not linux's fault moterola dropen linux support for that modem.

anyway... moterola did release a driver along time ago...
http://sm56.tk

however its not compatble with current linux distro's so you need to re-program your linux kernel... well, re-program is a big word.. u just hav to comment out / delete a few lines.

quite easy realy alsong as you know a little about computers.

anyways, im posting this for the benifit of any1 else who finds this thread after searching for answers.

but generally, its prob best to buy a modem from a company that is either supported by linux, or provides a linux driver.

as for linux being 10 year behind windows... well, many say linux has surpassed Unix... and Unix was multi-tasking while bill gates was in Nappies ;)

lol....... anyway's. if your not afraid of C source code, check the link. other-wise give up, or buy a real modem :)

Get the drivers here
http://www.motorola.com/softmodem/sm56_download.htm