Re: Modem woes (Motorola SM56)

[gary <gstegmiller prodigy net>]

Luciano ES wrote:

>         Hi, everyone.
>         I am running Red Hat 7.3, kernel 2.4.18. I have very little experience in the Linux world, aggravated by having this Motorola SM56 modem. I am clearly not the only one to be disappointed by it. All frustration and a possible solution to it is minutely described here:
>         http://www.sm56linux.hpg.ig.com.br/english/ingles.html
>         Mind you, the English is all but clear, but I can assure you that is well written and very clear in Portuguese. I followed all of those instructions and everything went on exactly as described. Except that when I set up the PPP account, I cannot connect because all ports give me a "modem busy" response, except ttyS0, already taken by the mouse. No ther port seems to be available and I cannot connect. Does anyone have any suggestion not involving the purchase of another modem?

This modem is plainly a Winmodem, and they are designed to work under Windows. In my opinion, they aren't worth the hassle of getting working.

Any hardware modem will work under Linux,and usually with no setup at all. I prefer the serial External modems. They cost a little more than internal modems, but you can use some of the money you saved by not buying Windows to buy a decent modem. I have not found an external modem that doesn't work with Linux.

Also, most internal ISA modems are hardware modems and work well with Linux. If you are running a newer computer, you probably won't have an ISA slot anymore. I've seen these modems on closeout lately in the $20-25 (USA) range.