[GLLUG] Plug'n'Play Modem

[Mike Rambo]

Chick Tower wrote:
> 
> I've been trying to get my modem to work with Mandrake 8.1 without much
> success.  The modem is a Creative Labs Modemblaster, an ISA hardware modem
> which is Plug'n'Play compatible and which has jumpers to manually configure
<snip>
> 
> 1)  Should it be possible for Linux (specifically Mandrake 8.1) to work with
> a PnP modem?

Pnp is problematic under Linux. You might google for linmodem and look
to see if anyone has found a way to support your particular model. I can
tell you that there are more models that are not supported than those
that are.

> 
> 2)  Would it be easier for Linux to work with the modem if PnP were
> disabled?

Definitely. It becomes a known serial port in that case and Linux will
"just find it". Depending on your system scripts you may still need to
manually create a symlink from the actual tty port your modem is on
(ttyS0-ttyS3 which equates to COM1-COM4) to /dev/modem for some software
to work correctly.

> 
> 3)  Can anyone direct me to a resource that describes how to configure a
> non-PnP modem for use with Win98SE?
> 

All you should have to do on any version of windows 9x (other than
possibly ME - not sure there - or very early versions of 95) is to
remove your PnP modem config from windows device manager, shut down,
jumper your modem to a serial setting NOT used by a serial port in your
box, and then run the add new hardware wizard in the control panel if
windows doesn't see the manually configured modem when you restart (it
probably won't). Most of the time the hardware wizard will be able to do
something really useful like actually finding your modem and correctly
setting it up to work. I have known times where further effort has been
required but most of the time the hardware wizard will do ok.


-- 
Mike Rambo
mrambo@lsd.k12.mi.us