No, I'm still not a geek.

[karen2205]

I've created a new partition in my hard drive and installed Debian onto it. Root obviously exists and I exist as a separate user. Beyond that I've not been able to get it to do a lot. First task is persuading it to dial the internet (http://www.aboutdebian.com/modems.htm) and I'm failing at the first hurdle ie. it can't find the modem to dial with. According to Windows my modem is using COM3. I couldn't find any modem settings in the BIOS and I'm now slightly stuck. It doesn't recognise the command 'setserial'.

Cutting for boring stuff and huge urls

Ahh, I've now found some more settings for the modem (via the device manager)

IBM Integrated 56k modem
PCI bus 0, device 31, function 6.
Driver is CXT
I/O Range 2400 - 24FF
I/O Range 2000 - 207F
IRQ 11

According to the conversion table COM3 should = I/O 03E8 and IRQ 4

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Modem-HOWTO-1.html#ss1.8 - says watching the boot time messages to find out which port the modem is on - they go too fast for me to do that.

The chances are that it's a winmodem and I'm going to have to find drivers to make it work with linux.
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/IBM_Integrated_56K_Modem_(MDC-2) looks useful.

(http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installing_Debian_on_a_ThinkPad_G41) for my own reference - I have an R50e.
http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/ - giving a non-root user power to do stuff like apt-get install.

OK, have downloaded the driver, written it to CD, now to see if I can make it work.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=82801DB%2FDBL%2FDBM+%28ICH4%2FICH4-L%2FICH4-M%29&btnG=Search&meta=

(googling output from lspci)

http://www.unc.edu/~aperrin/tips/src/usbkey.html - how to use a USB key under linux

Comments

[pfy.livejournal.com]

they go too fast for me to do that

You can use the 'dmesg' command to view the boot-time messages from the last boot. You'll probably want to use 'dmesg | less' to send the output to the 'less' pager command, so you can scroll back and forth through them at your leisure.

According to Windows my modem is using COM3

COM3 under Windows is usually equivalent to the device '/dev/ttyS2' under Linux (COM1 == /dev/ttyS0, COM2 == /dev/ttyS1, and so on). So if anything needs to know the location of your modem device, /dev/ttyS2 (note the capital S) is probably a good thing to try. However, if it's a weird winmodem thing, then things might work a bit differently, I don't know.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

You should be able to apt-get install setserial

[karen2205]

apt-get install isn't working, even when I'm root. I get an error message telling me to run apt-get update and on running that get another error message telling me to run apt-get update again. I think this will be fixed when it's got an internet connection. So I'm in a chicken-egg situation.

[secksiewolfie.livejournal.com]

Winmodem.

[karen2205]

I know. Hence why I've downloaded linux drivers for it.

[lovingboth]

I'd get a real, external "I can kick it and it plugs into a serial port" modem... if I didn't still have my old one.

They're really cheap second-hand now.

[karen2205]

Yeah, if I can't get this one working that's what I'll do. From what I've read so far you've got to be careful getting an external one 'cos some of them won't work with linux either.

[reddragdiva]

Vanishingly few.

[lovingboth]

If we're talking serial port modems, I'd be surprised if any had problems. Even the ancient ones that don't use Hayes modem commands should be doable, unless they expect you to play games with odd serial control lines.

With USB modems, all bets are off. Most seem to just pass the sound to the CPU and say 'make sense of that!' Urgh.

[reddragdiva]

Yes, that's the one. Serial port modems should work just fine.

[kake]

Can you turn that really long URL into an a href please? It's making my friends page hard to read.