Hi all,

I have been searching for an external hard modem, but in all the ads I can't be sure, as nobody advertises their modems as being all hardware modems. I'm living in an area of Michigan where fast connections are unavailable, so it's dial up or nothing.

I bought a US Robotics 5686E external serial modem, but Damn Small Linux didn't seem to recognize it. The configuration utility seemed to go well, but after configuration, it would not dial. I'm afraid I purchased a modem that is software dependent, because it came with a CD for installation with various versions of windows. I was hoping the CD was just for enhancement purposes and the modem was still hard for Linux. I don't know where to turn.

Does any one know for sure where I could buy a REAL, new, hard, serial, external, dial up modem?

The computer I'm using is an AST Pentium II. I bought it used and it had win95 installed on it. I got rid of win95, partitioned the 2gb IDE drive and installed dos5 on it with all my old dos programs and data, which are backed up on another old computer. The DSL I have been running with it is a live CD. There is plenty of room to install DSL on this machine, but I have not done so and will not, until I succeed in getting a dial up connection working. Simply put, if I can't get on line, I don't want Linux. Being new to Linux, I thought Damn Small is the way to go for now.

I suppose some of you are wondering why I'm not asking about this on the DSL web site. The reason is that after I registered with DSL and logged back in, I could find no link to post a question. I thought I had it once, but a message came up telling me that I don't have permission to post a question.

Thank you for any help I can get on this.

I was about to recommend Actiontec, but after reviewing their site, it looks like they no longer manufacture regular modems :-/

Wow..

This company made nice external modems, rack mount modems, and multiport modem banks.. I'm shocked.

I do not use Damn small linux ,and its is long time ago that I use a dial up modem ,but modem always comes with drivers for windows. But in Suse there is program to configure the dial modem and it ask you a lot af information
Fore instance the number to dail ,the account , password , when to dial up automatic or manually ,with user me use the dial modem and so on.
AS far as I remember it is a standard protocol use for a dial modem.

all the best

Hi,
External modems connect via the serial port. Therefore the hardware internal winmodem driver issue is not relative here.

'Configuring your modem and serial port' may be of some help for your setup.

[QUOTE=onebuck;3194825]Hi,


External modems connect via the serial port. Therefore the hardware internal winmodem driver issue is not relative here.

I mean a box containing a peach of hardware connected to a serial port
anyhow that is the one a use

all the best

Hi,

You did look at the link that I provided?

Hi,

Thank you all for your help.

I took Onebuck's advice and followed the links he provided. Using setserial to find out what UART I had was an interesting prospect. I have 4 old computers and I thought I would just load DSL in each of them and use setserial to find if I have the right UART in any of them. Would you believe DSL doesn't have a setserial command! As it happens, 2 of those computers has win98 2nd edition on them. On one of these, I went to DEVICE manager, then properties and discoverd that I have the right UART. It's a Compaq Pentium 3.

I still could not set up my Linux connection with the external modem.

I just found a note that I made after reading that "all pentium based computers have 1655 UART chips." All 4 of my computers are pentium based, so I guess that's not the problem.

I guess I'll roll through the various distributions till I find something that works.

Dan

They make two dialer programs that make setting modems up easier, one is called wvdial and the other is kppp. Of course if it is not a hardware modem you will still need a driver installed. I feel for you, till a year ago we were in the same situation here and now we have two different high speed availible.

Hi,

You could always try a LiveCD! I would suggest 'Slax 5.1.8' it is a Slackware based fork. Another would be 'KNOPPIX'. Both will look at your hardware an possibly setup properly. Just make sure you have your connection. Both will have the necessary programs to setup a modem. You should use the HOWTO to setup the modem that I gave you a link for.

Well guys,

Thanks for all your input. I don't have cd burning capability so while waiting for other distributions to arrive, snail mail, I went hunting and found a distro that comes on 2 floppies that I could easily download. Then either one or both of them had to be converted with rawrite. It's called Basic Linux 3. It has 2 versions, one that loads and runs on ram and one that you install on hd. I chose the ram one. Ha. Only 8 megs.

I'm happy to report that my USR 5686e serial external modem is a keeper after all. This is the one that I bought new about a month ago. After I booted with disk#1, I was prompted to put in disk#2. There was a screen that came up that told me of a few commands which I wrote down. It is strictly command line only. One of the instructions was "PPPSETUP" for going on line. I did the PPP thing and plugged in all the info that was required except for the 2
static dns numbers. I left them at the default setting as my ip told me they were dynamic and there was no provision for telling Basic Linux that. All of a sudden the modem started lighting up like a pinball machine and make a racket like I thought it was going to rattle off the table. It definitely went on line but was not communicating with my ip.
I finally found the volume knob. It was flush and a little hard to see.

I got back to my ip folks to get the right dns numbers. When I plugged those in I really,
finally, got on line with what is probably the smallest, least effective Linux out there.

I think Links was the name of the text based browser, which had several links you could select or you could type in your own choice. From the list I selected Drudge Report, which is mostly text anyway. BAM! I was there in no time flat. I love it.

Now I'm waiting for my snail mail distros to show. I have ordered Slax, Puppy, Knoppix,
PCLinuxOS and a later version of DSL. They are all live cd versions.

Thanks again,
Dan

PS.. I also ordered SimplyMEPIS

Hi,

You could check with a local library or University to get a download of some of the distro. You could order the best as far as I'm concerned; Slackware.

I hope you continue to learn and have an enjoyable experience with GNU/Linux.

Newsstand is an option too..

LinuxFormat
Linux+
LinuxMagazinePro

All come with DVD's that contain at least one or more Distros..

just an fyi.

Hi,

Forgot that one! Another source would be 'cheapbytes'. I prefer to get the distro of choice via 'LQ ISO' or DistroWatch. Or directly from the distribution homepage.

Well Folks,

The problem is solved and it propably would work for any of the distros. I'm back to my original distro, DSL.

In the dialup connection program among the queries asked is the speed of the modem. There are several speed choices and the highest of the choices was 115200 with a message stating that was the reccomended choice. I had thought that I was limited to just the choices on display. In exasperation I decided to write in my own choice and doubled the highest of the program's choice to 230400. Soon as I clicked DIAL, it went right on line just like a champ!! I was simply astonished that after all this time, something as simple as that was the hang up. I would like to let them know of the problem, but I'm denied permission to post on the dsl site. I'm registered and have a password, but it seems to make no difference.

stumpjumper