On Wednesday 29 August 2001 01:42, Idea.ListBT wrote: > Am very new to linux. (all attempts having failed previously) > Have installed Mandrake 8.0 > > It wont go online although I've entered all the parms for my > adsl modem. Strangely the install never prompted me for a phone > number for the dial-up and it doesn't recognise my 57k Conexant > modem either. > > Obviously I've gone astray somewhere even though I've > re-installed, looking for the opportunity to enter a phone > number. > Also cannot find how to effect a dial-up connection from within > KDE. (was thinking that this approach might demand a phone > number). > > Original System: 2 machine lan, win98. > Have made one machine dual booting win98/Mandrake8.0. > Used Mandrake's default auto install. > Linux install has spotted the nic card. > I am wondering if now expects me to connect over the lan without > dialling up. - Just a newbie guess. > > adsl modem or dial up? The two are very different. Linux makes it possible for you to go on line oner a network. It makes it possible for a network of computers all to get on line with a single IP address through sharing the gateway and translating network addresses in IP numbers and port numbers. (before it was called network address translation, it was known as the linus ip masquerade). However, you mention a conexant modem and a dialup which is certainly not adsl. The Asymetric Digital Subscriber Line is a digital use of a phone line with the possibility of plain old telephone service (POTS) over the same line at the same time. Normally adsl modems are external and connect through a network card or are internal and appear to the hardware as a network card but have a phone line connector. Ordinary dial-up modems are external on a serial port or on the Universal Serial Bus, or internal on either ISA or PCI cards or on an Audio Modem Riser (AMR) card. There are two main technologies in use. One sees the modem as a discrete device and includes circuitry to negotiate and time connections and to signal the host when data is ready or output is empty. They respond to very simple commands from the host processor and are called hardware modems. Approximately $40.00 US worth of electronic hardware is packed into a hardware modem and the command sets, with a few unimportant individual extensions, are so standard and complete that basically no driver is needed. The other is a glorified sound card using (possibly) a digital to analog and analog to digital converter, to translate the digital signals to sounds and vice versa. Some of the cheapest don't even do this. Instead, the CPU on your machine is harnessed to run a slow communication device, with a burden that often equals 30% of your CPU resources just to process signals. The electronics in such a modem cost from $1.50 to $3.00 US, but there is several hundred K of program used to make your computer use its resources to make these minimal electronics act like a modem. The Conexant is of the second category, a software modem. Because the software modem has most of its value tied up in the software, the manufacturer is reluctant to open the source code so that linux drvers can be written, and usually the manufacturer is also unconvinced that there is any profitability in writing linux drivers himself. This means that any drivers we are likely to get, except for the PCTel, are by reverse engineering. I believe there is such a driver for the conexant, and it may be found by consulting www.linmodems.org and following links from there. A broken (in the sense of unworkable and idiotic) law in the United States called the Digital Millenium Copyright Act has basically made it illegal to perform most reverse engineering of software products or encryption, so there are legal issues (real or imagined, but risky nevertheless) involved with any distribution of linux actually offering any of the reverse-engineered drivers. This means that we are unable to help you use that which you have purchased because someone else thinks they have rights to control your use of it. You have not gone astray. With MandrakeLinux8.0 alone you will never get the Conexant modem to work for dialup. Windows does it with several hundred K of accessory driver software, and linux does not come supplied with it (neither does Windows--your computer manufacturer put them together). It is a great deal of grief to make one work in terms of kernel recompilation with a secret driver (something most people migrating to linux seem to want to get away from). The easy solution is to find an inexpensive external serial modem which needs no drivers for linux and to use that. You define your local network first then add the modem dialup as an internet connection. www.linmodems.org has some software that makes telephone answering systems out of software modems, and this is a good use for them. Civileme > > Any advice appreciated. > > > Dave S.
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