Baslinux mailing list

[Lee Forrest <lforrestster AT gmail.com>]

On Mon, Dec 11, 2006 at 06:13:08PM +0000, sindi keesan wrote:
> >
> > Us stone-age linux folks just have to accept that there are some
> > hardware and applications we can't run, right?
[delete]

> Why do you need a serial driver, for a modem?

To program the serial port/card, which turns the parallel data
from the bus into serial data (and vice-versa). The modem,
external in this case, plugs into the serial port.

Modem cards have a serial port/card built into them, but they'd
still need the driver.

> Our friend whose Gateways Essential we repaired (bad capacitors) got a USB 
> modem (his onboard winmodem got fried when the caps went bad) instead of 
> the special half-height modem card.  He said it worked much faster on his 
> bad phone line than the old modem.

Might be the way to go, but I don't know anything about how USB modems
work.

The modem HOWTO (which admits to being sparse on the subject)
has this much and no more:

2.8 USB Modems

USB = Universal Serial Bus. Some USB modems work with Linux
and some don't. Linux has support for modems that conform to
the USB Communication Device Class Abstract Control Model
(= USB CDC ACM). There's a module for ACM named acm.o.
See the /usb/acm... document in the kernel documentation
directory (/ usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-2.4.x in Debian, perhaps
/usr/doc/kernel... in some distributions). The ACM serial
port for the first (0th) such modem is (with devfs) is:
/dev/usb/acm/0. Otherwise it might be /dev/usb/ttyACM0.

9.3 USB (Universal Serial Bus) Ports

The serial ports on the USB are: /dev/ttyUSB0, /dev/ttyUSB1, etc.
The devfs names for these are: /dev/usb/tts/0, /dev/usb/tts/1,
etc. For many modems they are /dev/usb/acm/0, etc. (in devfs
notation). For more info see the usb subdirectory in the kernel
documentation directory for files: acm and usb-serial.

/quote

Could I just use a USB serial port with some kind of adaptor?

> You can use USB modems in linux with acm.o and /dev/ttyACM0, according to 
> a website (search google/linux for USB modem).  The modules for 'big' 
> BL3 2.2.26 kernel include acm.o, so the kernel must have been compiled to 
> accept it. David Moberg's 2.4.31 kernel modules include acm.o .
> 
> We also have two PCMCIA controllers for ISA slots, and two non-USB PCMCIA 
> wireless cards, but my fastest computer has no ISA slots.

I've never seen an ISA slot. Just have two PCIs.

> We were loaned a USB PCMCIA wireless card that is linux-compatible 

[delete]

Thanks for that, but wireless is one thing I do _not_ do.

Will look into USB modem, though.

Thanks a lot,

Lee