Dial-up from a Gateway 2550?

[W.C. Epperson]

Is there a good faq or cookbook on doing dialup using RedHat (particularly) on laptops? I'm an RHCT, but RH seems to hold dialup in some disdain, and I have not found the software magic to "see" the modem, even. Have tried the built-in, a Xircom combo card, and a USR 56K external. Can't see 'em, redhat-config-network locks up if I try to create one from scratch.

[Bruce Copeland]

Hmmm... These days it seems like everyone sort of holds dialup in some disdain, and you're right, there doesn't seem to be much good documentation. I've been doing dialup (including small network dialup) on several different machines for several years, and I have it working just fine on an HP ze4100 notebook, as well. Still I've never tried using the built-in Red Hat GUI tools. I can tell you what files you need where and basically what their content should be. As for hardware issues, I always start with lspci and minicom. If you can't get more meaningful help with the GUI tools, I'll jump back in with some command line and file based suggestions.

Bruce

[Steven E. Protter]

http://www.tldp.org is a good documentation site.

This doc might help:
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Modem-HOWTO-12.html

http://www.tldp.org/LDP/nag/node112.html

http://www.tldp.org/FAQ/Linux-FAQ/networking.html

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Laptop-HOWTO-6.html

Linmodems
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Linmodem-HOWTO.html


Conextant Rockwell Modems
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/text/Conexant+Rockwell-modem-HOWTO

The hardware browser should see the modem.

Make sure its plugged in and connected to a telephone network.

Linmodems should not be needed for an external model.

I'm assuming you have been to Gateway's and Xircom's web site.

SEP

[Mark Grant]

Contentious suggestion. Dump the Red Hat version of KDE and compile yourself a nice shiny vanilla version from kde.org and run "kppp". It does everything for you. It doesn't actually tell you which serial device (you do have serial support in the kernel don't you) you're modem is attacheched to but it will scan specified devices to see if there seems to be a modem attached.

Failing that, try trusty old "cu" as in "cu -l dir and see if an "AT" return you a healthy "OK".

[Paul Cross_1]

Personally, I use a Xircom combo card (a hardware modem! YAY!) and wvdial has always worked beautifully for me... it's fast, works on the command-line, and reliable.

[W.C. Epperson]

Thought I'd posted thanks yesterday, but the message isn't here.

I've assigned points on apparent value-hope to get a chance to work on the laptop this weekend. Bruce: I'll probably ask for further assistance. I'm a command-line guy and often can't absorb the culture of a gui well enough to make it work for me. But if I can get to a point of seeing and talking to the modem, I'm sure the old grey haired systems weenie can take it from there.

[Huc_1]

I have use a few modem in build and pcmcia, I have oftem had the probem that the softlink /dev/modem did not exist or pointed to the wrong /dev ... to be correct in most case this would be

/dev/modem -> ttyS0
and ttys0 would look like
crw-rw-rw- 1 root tty 3, 48 Jan 30 2003 /dev/ttys0

I usualy use "minicom -s" from a console and as root to do the setup of my modem I find this to be the a good all around tool.

Keep us informed on progres.

J-P

[Huc_1 · Accepted solution]

This link explain it well and is worth the read

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linag2/book/ch04.html

Have fun !

J-P

[W.C. Epperson]

Ding! Give that man a bunny!

I'll be working on it today. If I can't do it with the O'Reilly chapter, then the modems must all be broken.

[W.C. Epperson]

Thanks for the pointers. I finally found that redhat-config-network used wvdial, and wvdialconf found the Xircom modem at ttyS4! I hadn't checked past 2 or 3. I was able to build an interface config with redhat-config-network after that. Bring it up and down with ifup/ifdown ppp0.

Funny that the config script hangs if you point it at a port with no modem.