Configuring modems in Linux.

[Shoeberto]

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Okay, I formatted my HD and installed Windows '98 and Mandrake Linux (on seperate partitions) It took me a while, but I finally got the modem to work on the Windows partition, but I can't get it to work in Linux. When I use the dial-up program and hit "Connect" it just either says "Contacting modem...Modem is in use." or "Could not detect modem."

I've tried reconfiguring it in the controls a few times. I made sure it was set up like it was in Windows - same port and drivers. But when I go into Hardware>Modems and click "Configure" on that, it tells me it can't configure the modem drivers that it's supposed to use, and gives me a website to check out. (the irony.)

Yeah...any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Dr Unne]

Maybe try http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/Modem-HOWTO.html . Or search around over here maybe: http://www.justlinux.com/forum/index.php I'm not too familiar with Mandrake. If you want to do it from scratch the hard way maybe try http://hints.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/ppp-hint.txt . I'm assuming you're using PPP?

[Shoeberto]

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Turns out I have an LT Win Modem, which apparantly isn't very friendly with Linux. I found some drivers at linmodems.com, though the documentation was a bunch of technical jargan. But from what I did understand, the drivers I downloaded (I only got a couple) didn't create the proper directories in the /dev folder, because what it said should show up in the modem options didn't.

*confused*

[Dr Unne]

Files in the /dev directory aren't real files, they're special files that're actually devices. /dev = devices. There's some command that creates device files, mknod (?) or something but I don't know it. Doing anything in Linux pretty much means reading some technical jargon, which is why no one uses Linux. I've read a lot about winmodems not working in Linux. That's because (I think) winmodems are designed to do a lot of things in software using the CPU that normal modems do in hardware, which means they're much cheaper, but also much slower and not at all compatible with much of anything. Maybe you could buy a real hardware modem. They can't be that expensive nowadays. $20 or something? They should give them away for free, they're such a throwback to ancient computer technology.

[Shoeberto]

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I think I might just go ahead and buy a new one. I don't think it'd really be worth the trouble to download the twenty different files I saw just to see which one works. According to what I read from Winmodems Aren't Modems, what you said is right about them being prettymuch incompatible with everything but Windows.