Slackware 12.2: PMCIA Modem Problem

tronayne · 12-29-2008, 07:18 AM

I have a Diamond 56K PCMCIA modem that I have used in a Dell Inspiron 6000 with previous Slackware releases and I can't seem to figure out what to do to get it going with Slackware 12.2; I'd appreciate any advice.

The card is installed in PCMCIA slot 0, which should be "COM4" or /dev/ttyS3 (I think). Walking through /dev/ttyS0 through /dev/ttyS3 with kppp returns "modem busy" which, you know, tells me I'm not doing something correctly. I have looked through Pat's e-mail where he talks about SETSERIAL in /etc/rc.d/rc.serial but that doesn't seem to be necessary as this thing has been working just fine previously (and starting rc.serial didn't make any difference).

Any ideas?

With thanks.

EDIT

I've been reading and searching and scratching whatever itches trying to figure out what to do to get this modem recognized. I'm pretty sure that this is the card slot (as reported by lspci -v:

Code:

03:01.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev b3)
        Subsystem: Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 168, IRQ 19
        Memory at dfd00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Bus: primary=03, secondary=04, subordinate=07, sec-latency=176
        Memory window 0: 30000000-33fff000 (prefetchable)
        Memory window 1: 34000000-37fff000
        I/O window 0: 00001400-000014ff
        I/O window 1: 00001800-000018ff
        16-bit legacy interface ports at 0001
        Kernel driver in use: yenta_cardbus
        Kernel modules: yenta_socket

And setserial -ag /dev/ttyS3 shows:

Code:

/dev/ttyS3, Line 3, UART: unknown, Port: 0x02e8, IRQ: 3
        Baud_base: 115200, close_delay: 50, divisor: 0
        closing_wait: 3000
        Flags: spd_normal auto_irq

Reading the information at http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/util...cia/howto.html, it looks like all the right stuff should be present. After a lot of confusion, I did notice something about modules and checking /etc/rc.modules the only thing I can find referencing PCMCIA is

Code:

# SL811HS PCMCIA/CF USB Host Controller
#/sbin/modprobe sl811_cs

And here's where I run dry -- I suppose I can just modprobe (can't hurt, right?) but I'm not sure if that's the right approach to get the PCMCIA card recognized by the kernel and before I blow something up (or keep going down the completely wrong path) I'm wondering if this might be it or if anybody has any other ideas.

This seems to get down to the PCMCIA card is not being recognized.

Thanks.

gankoji · 12-31-2008, 11:11 AM

On the contrary, according to your lspci report your card is being recognized. The problem you're experiencing is more than likely an issue with the driver module being used. Did you ever have to use a certain kernel module driver for the card before? Or did you just plug it in and it worked?

tronayne · 12-31-2008, 04:23 PM

The card "just worked" with 12.1 (and previous releases) -- and now I'm off in the boondocks on a dial-up line looking at a Windows box for... well, ten minutes or so. It's a PCMCIA card so it ought to be (and has been) plug-n-play but..

I have no idea what module to use (and would really appreciate a hint or two). Seems like there was something about PCMCIA cards and plug-n-play in Pat's e-mail message about what's what with 12.2 (that I can't look at right now) but it wasn't really clear enough to give me a place to start. I'll try anything, just don't know what to try if you know what I mean.

Given that 12.2 works so nicely in every other way (like recognizing that the disk drive is SATA so things go a lot faster) this one is more than a little frustrating and I'm just not up to snuff about PCMCIA to know what I'm doing (or what damage I can do!).

Thanks for the input and a happy new year.

gankoji · 12-31-2008, 08:44 PM

Well, I can't say that I'm much of an expert on PCMCIA either, but what it could be is that Pat and the rest could have finally taken the PCMCIA driver off of the default modules list since it's becoming a dated standard... but I have no idea about that. Are you running the huge kernel, the generic, or a custom?

[EDIT]Sorry, I just looked at my lsmod and noted that pcmcia/pcmcia_core are loaded, so this isn't relevant :-P. I'm running huge though.[/EDIT]

As far as doing damage to your card, I don't know of any physical damage or 'soft' damage you could do to your card by trying different modules out. A good place to start would be your /lib/modules/linux-2.6.27.7(-smp). That's where all of your currently compiled modules are kept.

If you try the standard pcmcia and pcmcia_core modules and they don't work, then you might want to try and find a kernel driver specific to your card.

tronayne · 01-01-2009, 11:10 AM

I'm running the default, huge, SMP kernel (I don't really like to fiddle with the kernel if I don't have to so if the default works all right I just let 'er rip and go with it). I have a couple of 12.1 machine and I did a little comparing between the two module files; couldn't find much of anything in either about PCMCIA other than the one reference is commented out in both the 12.1 and 12.2 machines (and the 12.1 boxes are desktops whereas the 12.2 is a laptop which only matters for this modem card). Tis a puzzlement.

Anyway, I'll dig some more, try a few things and thanks for the help and happy new year.

ilux942 · 01-16-2009, 10:33 PM

Did you try this command: pcmcia-socket-startup (as root)?

Drakeo · 01-17-2009, 12:45 AM

12.1 you now have 12.2 please give user the permission for that device or internet. what ever it is plugdevice. the device is loaded and the module is to so get permision from hal to use the dial up or plugdev or dameon.
last but not least go into your /etc/rc.d/ folder you will find rc.pcmcia file make sure it is executable. then go into your /etc/rc.d/ folder in there is rc.M file open with editor and make sure there is no little dot be for etc ->.<- it should look like this
if [ -x /etc/rc.d/rc.pcmcia ]; then
/etc/rc.d/rc.pcmcia start
# The cards might need a little extra time here to initialize.
sleep 5
fi
and when you installed slackware you did say to enable pcmcia right. other wise you will have to do what I told you. If it was an upgrade then you old rc.M file was backed up and a new one was inserted.

kite · 01-17-2009, 08:58 AM

did you try to check with command "pccardctl info" as root, here I have:

bash-3.1# pccardctl info
PRODID_1="3Com"
PRODID_2="3CXM/3CCM556"
PRODID_3="Megahertz 56K Cell/Telephony Modem"
PRODID_4=""
MANFID=0101,0034
FUNCID=2
PRODID_1=""
PRODID_2=""
PRODID_3=""
PRODID_4=""
MANFID=0000,0000
FUNCID=255

and lsmod:
serial_cs,pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic

kite · 01-17-2009, 09:04 AM

You could also try to unplug it and plug it again. Then you could check dmesg whether any new device is assigned. You might find similar message as mine:

pccard: card ejected from slot 0
pccard: PCMCIA card inserted into slot 0
pcmcia: registering new device pcmcia0.0
0.0: ttyS2 at I/O 0x3e8 (irq = 5) is a 16550A

You could see that I have the modem name /dev/ttyS2

tronayne · 01-18-2009, 09:24 AM

Thank you for the input; I should note that this a full installation, not an upgrade from Slackware 12.1.

Executing pccardctl info returns

Code:

socket 0 yenta_cardbus busid 0000:03:01:00
config status: on ready: no

That's all it says; i.e., there's nothing about registering the card or tty information.

dmesg indicates that the card was inserted in slot 0.

I fiddled with /etc/rc.d/rc.M and /etc/rc.d/rc.pcmcia as suggested and there was no difference either way (so I put them back to their default settings). I did notice in /etc/rc.d/rc.M (I think -- to respond here I have to run Windows to get a dial-up) that the PCMCIA stuff is supposed to be for 2.4.x kernels if that matters one way or the other.

So, alas, no joy here in Snowville (there's three feet on the ground and another foot or so falling in great gobs -- so much for living in northeastern Michigan, half-way to the north pole, eh).

Thanks again.

air4time · 01-25-2009, 09:38 PM

I am having almost the same problem but with wireless card. My system is Dell Inspiron 3800 and wireless cards are Dell TrueMobile and Orinoco Gold Card. Both work with Slackware 12.0. I install new 12.2 on a different partition and neither card ever comes on even with custom kernel.I have uploaded two text logs from dmesg. I can not see why it does not work on 12.2. I compared the rc.M and they both seem to be the same. When you put either card in (12.2) dmesg just shows card in nothing else.