Modem & Connecting to Internet

Enygma

Hey,

What modem should I get for Linux? (RH 8.0)
Will any external modem work?

Also how does one connect to The Internet?

Any information is most welcome

Thanks

Peter

SkepticOne

I would recommend an external serial modem. I've nevery had any problems with US Robotics/3com ones.

Internal modems also work provided you have the appropriate driver. In the past people have warned against these, but I believe the situation is improving. Others will be better qualified to comment.

Once you have your modem installed, connecting to the Internet is fairly easy with modern distros. There is usually a utility where you can enter the settings, normally just phone number, username and password.

Enygma

Nice one! I got a Creative External Serial modem and it was easier than anytime I've setup Internet access on a Windows machine!

Worked straight off the bat, gave number for IOL and username and pass.

The job!

Puck

This wouldn't happen to be the modem you got would it? Due to a recent lightning storm I happen to be in the market for a new modem and am looking for one I can use on Mandrake Linux. The exact model of modem you got would come in very handy as you seemed to have no trouble at all with it.

Enygma

Hmm, the one I got is the V.90 version. I'd say that one shold work, ask in the shop if you can return it if it doesn't work.

Puck

Thanks, I managed to pick up a different external modem pretty cheap and that does the job fine.

Jorinn

IT Direct in dublin sell internal PCi hardware modems, linux drivers are on intel site, never had a problem with mine, however in Mandrake 8.0 there is a bug with internal modems seemingly, notes on a fix (ewditing one line as root) ar on the mandrake webby.

zynaps

Bah, after I finally bother me arse setting up a new temporary VFAT partition (since the slackware 8.1 cdrom couldn't recognize the dvd drive it was running from or the NTFS /dev/hda1, for some reason, nor could any of the kernels on the cd.....) to carry package files and such, and moving over ltmodem and emu10k1 drivers downloaded on windows, and lots of bollox trying to fix unresolved symbol errors from buggy kernel setup stuff in the default install, I can now access the modem, but it hangs up as soon as it connects to the isp.

So... anyone got any tips for setting up ppp for esat nolimits?
kppp sends something like "cannot find ppp() interface", while gnome-ppp just dials, claims to be connected and hangs up, and I have no clue how to set up pppd manually.
Is there something obvious I'm leaving out? Do I need to set up response strings like "assword:" (heh)?

zynaps

Typedef

At a guess you don't have ppp compiled into your kernel.

If I were you I'd do this.

ln -sf /dev/ttyLT0 /dev/modem
chmod 777 /dev/modem

and use wvdial.

This should enable you to debug whether or not you are using a kernel with ppp support.

It sounds a bit like you are establishing a connection, but, your kernel doesn't support ppp, so when the point-to-point daemon starts, it fails to do all that point-to-point automagic.

Some of the bzImages that come with Slackware will definitaley support the point-to-point protocol.

so there.

zynaps

Originally posted by Typedef
At a guess you don't have ppp compiled into your kernel.

If I were you I'd do this.

ln -sf /dev/ttyLT0 /dev/modem
chmod 777 /dev/modem

and use wvdial.

This should enable you to debug whether or not you are using a kernel with ppp support.

I had recompiled the kernel with ppp support, and ltmodem's drivers seemed to be working - I could certainly hear it dialling out and getting to the handshake bit, but... then it would just hang up after a while, with pppd returning (in the case of kppp) error 16, apparently meaning that the modem had hung up.

Is it possible that I just don't have ltmodem working properly?
The debug window just shows the modem commands which is useless really, as it's capable of dialling out.
If I could use minicom I might be able to manually dial the isp and see what happened then, but I can't... maybe I have wvdial though, I haven't checked.

Bloody confusing :P

zynaps

Right, so...
I recompiled the kernel with ppp built in and not a module, went through /etc/ppp/pppscript and /etc/ppp/options, and I don't see any problems with them.

According to syslog, pppd is saying that it can't find the ppp0 interface... but since these interfaces are supposed to be created and deleted dynamically, what's the story?
I get as far as the CONNECT bit in the modem log, then it just sits there for a bit and hangs up... ifconfig mentions nothing but the loopback device at any time could it be that the kernel still doesn't support ppp and I made a haymes of it somewhere?
*growls at slackware*
Should I be doing something like ifup ppp0 to set up the interface before trying to connect?

It's a 2.4.18 (I guess) kernel on slackware 8.1 ... hard to understand how people who are new to linux and possibly even computers are supposed to just get it and go, it's giving me a lot of trouble and I've used another distribution of linux a fair bit before, just not the net because there were no working ltmodem drivers back then.

Raaaaaaarrrrrr....

zynaps

Typedef

hmm.

compile ppp support (as a module) and all the associated ppp modules that go with it.

Then use kppp or wvdial. You shouldn't have any other problems.