[wellylug] newbie installation question

[Peter Jones]

-----Original Message-----
From: Nick Jensen [mailto:nickspoon at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, 10 November 2004 10:56 a.m.
To: wellylug at lists.wellylug.org.nz
Subject: Re: [wellylug] newbie installation question


On Tue, 09 Nov 2004 21:31:47 +0000, firstname lastname
<post_box_ at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 1. i have an external modem (US Robotics 56KB message modem) which i do
not
> think has been detected durring the mandrake installation. i can not see
it
> listed under hardware or peripherals. how can i check that the modem is
> recognised in mandrake and if it has not been recognised how do i force
> mandrake to recognise it?

 Hi there - unfortunately getting a 56k modem to be recognised by
Linux can be quite tricky - the reason being (roughly) that (nearly)
every company that makes modems creates drivers for it so Windows will
recognise it, and Windows will then incorporate the drivers into the
Operating System so the modem is automatically recognised. However,
there's less money in Linux, so the companies spend much less time
writing drivers for it.
 There are various places you can look for drivers for Linux, but my
advice (the advice I took) is to go back to Dick Smith and get their
generic 56k internal modem for $29 - it comes with drivers for lots of
Linux distributions including Mandrake, and it works well and fast.
 I hope I haven't put you off Linux with this little tirade, I nearly
got put off it several years ago when I first tried to connect to the
internet and realised I had to learn what the difference between a
software and hardware modem was. But persevere, it's good fun, and if
you get the Dick Smith modem you can bypass all the agonising I had to
do.

    Nick

Really?? It is an external modem  (big assumption that it's not a USB
device)
so serial port attached and should be supported no problems.
(getting an external is usually recommended as the way around internal
Winmodem hell)

My own USR 56K external has been picked up by every linux distro I've tried.
(currently 
is attached to a Mitel SME box) 



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