hey
i have a conexant hcf modem and have finally after a long struggle managed to get it configured and responding Mandrake 9.1 however when I try to connect to my isp it nearly always gives the response BUSY, and on the occasion it does connect it give NO CARRIER. im sure the busy signal is something wrong at my end because I have never had any trouble connecting to my isp in windows 98. im very new to linux so any help on how I can get connected to the net would be much appreciated
thanks

just a suggestion: have you tried looking at the end of the file /var/log/messages to see if any error messages are being generated?

your modem should dial and connect:
ATDT123457(whatever your isp's number is)^M^M
CONNECT
-- got it

then start the authorisation process (something like below):

send (\d)
expect (ogin: )
46666 V42bis^M
^M
^M
login:
-- got it
send (yourusername^M)
expect (word: )
yourusername^M
Password:
-- got it
send (??????)
Serial connection established.
Using interface ppp0
Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/modem
Dec 19 10:43:14 panic /etc/hotplug/net.agent: assuming ppp0 is already up
Dec 19 10:43:18 panic kernel: PPP BSD Compression module registered
Dec 19 10:43:18 panic kernel: PPP Deflate Compression module registered
Dec 19 10:43:18 panic pppd[587]: local IP address xxx.xxx.xx.x
Dec 19 10:43:18 panic pppd[587]: remote IP address xxx.xxx.xx.x
Dec 19 10:43:18 panic pppd[587]: primary DNS address xxx.xxx.xx.x
Dec 19 10:43:18 panic pppd[587]: secondary DNS address xxx.xxx.xx.x
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

are you getting any error messages? eg "Request denied" or "Username: timeout" or anything else unusual?

there is nothing that stands out as being out of order in /var/log/messages execpt

clear mdkkdm[2256]: fatal IO error 32 (Broken pipe)

however being new to linux i have no idea if this is relevent to my situation.
the log from the modem as it trys to connect goes like this:

ATZ
OK
ATM0L0
OK
ATDT086725327
BUSY

this is what almost always happens

however this has happened about twice out of many attemps:

ATZ
OK
ATM0L0
OK
ATDT086725327
CONNECT //with speed etc

NO CARRIER

its never got further than this