I have my choices narrowed down to two distro's. SuSe and Mandrake. I will be buying one soon and at least two households will buy according to my experiences and input. The main problem I have with Mandrake is this. No matter what I have tried I cannot get my LT Winmodem to work with Mandrake 10.0 Official, and I have tried everything, plus, that I could find on the net. I no longer have broadband access so I cannot download 10.1 beta. I like Mandrake more then SuSe right now, this is after experiences and gathering other info about SuSe and Mandrake. But I do not want to buy it if I cannot get my winmodem working. I hope to have broadband in the next year, when it is available in the area I just moved to. Now my modem does work with SuSe, but I have other issues with that distro that make me lean away from it.

Anyone have any thoughts, ideas or comments? Or should I just stay with, and recommend the free versions that work until something better comes along.

Webwolf

Why not just find out what module SuSE uses for your modem, and
use the same one for Mandrake? This support comes from the kernel,
not the other software with a specific distribution.

I tried using the rpm's that work with Suse in Mandrake. But it seemed to be missing things that I thought where specifically for Suse. I may be wrong. Is their another way I can do this?


Webwolf

I should add this. I have tried a few things in Mandrake 10.0 Official. I used the /dev/modem/ttyLT0 and /dev/ttyLT0, the same as suse, I followed instructions perfectly, a few different sets of instructions, and still had the same problem. It kept telling me that it only supported kernel 2.4 or above. And I know I downloaded the correct ltmodem.rpm for my current kernel.



Webwolf

Sorry, I don't know how to do that gui and rpm stuff. You should
search the LQ Mandrake and the Networking forums, and also
www.google.com/linux. It' been discussed many times. If you
don't find an answer, then start a new thread with the title of
"Need help installing winmodem in Mandrake 10.0" and post it
in the Mandrake forum. You might also search the threads of
otish1000c since he seems to have a lot of Mandrake knowledge.

That is ok. I have tried all of the above with no results. I know with other distros they leave some things out and reserve them for the commercial versions. That is fine but I would like to make sure before I buy the commercial version that it will work. I started this to see if anyone has a comparison between the free one and the commercial version of Mandrake 10.0, etc. If the support for winmodems is stronger in the commercial version compared to the free one.



Webwolf

Gotcha!

So you post exactly what your winmodem is, and someone can give you an answer. So far you've not given enough information for anyone to intelligently tell you whether or not your model winmodem will work in any distribution. Also, search where I told you before, plus the LQ HCL, and whilst your searching you'll find a link to a website that's totally dedicated to winmodems. From those sources, when you find out which modem you have, you'll get your answers. And perhaps you could try checking with Mandrake. If they want to sell you a product, perhaps they'll have support, also.

Class 0780: 11c1:044c Communication controller: Lucent Microelectronics LT WinModem (rev 02)
Using test
SubSystem 11c1:044c Lucent Microelectronics LT WinModem
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 5
Memory at ea000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
I/O ports at 9000 [size=8]

The modem has a supported Lucent/Agere DSP (digital signal processing) chipset
with primary PCI_ID: 11c1:044c
DSP=1
Please browse the folder Modem/ containing the following files:
1stRead.txt General.txt Rational.txt
DriverCompiling.txt ModemData.txt Testing.txt

I called Mandrake and they have a voice mail system. I will be sending them an e-mail but I am not sure how well that will go over. Like i have said I have tried everything that you are suppose to. Checked this forum and others. Searched google.com/linux and it should work, but it is not. It works great with Suse 9.1 so I know it can work with linux, but how to get it working in Mandrake is another story, lol.

Webwolf

OK, as far as i know the download (free) edition doesn`t have the "ltmodem" kernel modules.

I use mandrake 9.2 download edition and it hasn`t got them on the install disks.

But the commercial versions e.g discovery and the powerpack most certainly do. Go here to have a look,

http://www.mandrakesoft.com/products...ndex-name.html

http://www.mandrakesoft.com/products...ndex-name.html

Those links are for the packages contained in the discovery edition and the powerpack edition respectively. If you are going to buy (which I think is a good thing and a decision you won`t regret as i am going to buy also) Iwould suggest the powerpack as it has a heap of extra stuff on it. It has virtually everything you would ever need.

When you click on the link just scroll down until you see the several "ltmodem kernel" packages. There are a few of them depending on which kernel you are using. When you install, your modem should be detected and the correct module installed and configured by the installer ready to go when you boot into it for the first time.

Hope this was of some help

Cheers

What I am wondering is if it works with Lucent/Agere. The ones available say the Apollo and Mars chipsets. I am going to try and get ahold of someone at Mandrake. Powerpack sounds like the way to go and I would love to start using Mandrake again.



Webwolf

OK, go here and have a look. Is this what you mean?

http://www.heby.de/ltmodem
These are the LTmodem drivers that are supplied in rpm form with mandrake. This article does say Agere and I am pretty sure your modem will be covered. You say it is supported so I can`t see any problem really.

I think the problem you are having at the moment is that the free version you have hasn`t got the correct drivers whereas the powerpack does. Anyway, have a look at the link and see if that sheds some more light...........let us know how you get on or what you think.

Cheers

the best and easiest way to solve this problem is to get an external modem. You can get one on Ebay for 10.00 just plug in and it works. The problem with linmodems is if you find a fix youre going to have to change the driver everytime you update the kernel or the OS. I have been with Mandrake since 7.2 and I enjoy it's ease. The modem problem is a issue with all distros. Just get an external till you get dsl. I have one I could sell you for 15.00 plus shipping. If youre interested email me at rent_my_husband@verizon.net

RV

evodawg this is kind but probably not a fair use of the board.

http://www.mandriva.com/en/hardware
Could not find your modem in there, but that database is possibly not up to date.

In my experience http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/
often have in its archive some solution
and their scanmodem tool will list most compatible drivers

Ehmm... he probably found a solution in the last two years (look at the date: 09-03-04 and I think it's mm/dd/YY as Americans use it.)