Tried Knoppix, lost my modem
 

Am in a library, so prompt response earns double thanks.

Trying for week and half to install RedHat 9. Bought Knoppix 3.2 on CD. Ran it for first time yesterday. It seemed to run okay, except it couldn't find my printer (it said CUPS not installed) and when I tried to look at the Kernel it couldn't open /usr/src/linux/arch//config.in for reading. Before this I had tried to connect to the internet, but not been surprised when I could not - I have a winmodem. At no point did I write anything to hdd, and I logged out correctly.

Windows 98 SE would not load. Message said run scanreg. Did so. Message said registry problem, so registry being replaced. Now no modem. Device manager shows winmodem working properly. Modem diagnostics/More information shows no obvious problem. But dialling out produces instant 'Failed to connect to remote computer. Unable to establish a connection'. Drivers appear to be there, but I am no expert on all this. Dial-up networking does not see the modem - 'cannot see specified modem'. have tried uninstall/reinstall. In dial-up network the modem is found as new hardware, but will not install when I try to. So...

How do I get my modem back?
Can I be sure that when I get a proper modem dial-up networking will see it - I could still be in the same mess.
Does the fact that knoppix appeared to be running okay mean that I really should be able to install rh9, or at the very least some linux or other?
Please help swiftly if possible. Thank you.

I haven't got a knoppix disc handy, but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't include the kernel source.

Internal windows issue. Your registry damage at this time could be purely coincidental (or something complicated could be going on). In any event, I will issue the standard windows advice - reinstall the drivers. Failing that, reinstall windows. You were doing that regularly already, right? ;-)

Serial modems are well known for a tendancy to just work. Of course, this depends on how buggered your windows installation is.

Some linux or other, yes. Every distro has its quirks that emerge as problems on some machines. I suggest that you start a new thread to deal with the issues you're having installing RH9.

Thank you. Actually Windows came installed when I bought the computer, and the installation disks were not included. I don't know whether Windows installations can be downloaded once you have the license - if so I wasn't doing it. Even the drivers for the modem weren't supplied, unless they are included on the Phonetools CD. Computer maintenance is not my forte, as you can see. In any case, I am hoping to dump Windows and migrate to Linux, so I suppose I needed the new modem anyway. It's just kind of nice to keep one os operational at all times, in case problems occur. Or for when they do. Or something. I can't believe the registry problem was a coincidence, by the way, but there you go. At least I know now I should be able to run Linux in some form or other. Thanks again for the help.