Serial modem question
 

Do serial modems need drivers? I did a google search trying to find that
question out, but got nowhere. Only drivers for PCI (?) serial modems.

I'm running RH 8.0
Doesn't auto recognize the modem
I did ls -l /dev/ttyS to make sure of serial port
dmesg | grep to check the port
But then I did minicom and the modem didn't respond.

The modem is new, but doesn't come with a linux driver.
The company no longer manufactures the modem.
It uses a conexant CX6827-11 chipset.
It's plugged into the 1 serial port of my TP 600E
Works in W98se

I know that serial modems are 'supposed' to work in linux. Just
not sure if you need a driver. If so, I'm in trouble. Can't find one
in google.

Thanks

If your modem plugs into a 9pin or 25pin port on the back of your computer then you shouldn't need any extra drivers. You should just point your dialer to the correct device name:
COM1 = /dev/ttyS0
COM2 = /dev/ttyS1
COM3 = /dev/ttyS2
COM4 = /dev/ttyS3

Hope this helps.

This isn't one of those external "Soft" modems, is it? I know that some USB modems are basically internal pci "winmodems" put in external cases, but I have a funny feeling that some new serial modems are in fact "soft" modems.

Baldrick

As far as I am aware, the maximum speed of the serial port is still not quick enough to send un-demodulated signals to the computer, so any modem that connects to a physical serial port has to use hardware rather than software to demodulate/decode the information. I could be wrong, in which case, please let me know... but just for the record, all serial port modems I have used so far have worked flawlessly under Linux.