wade

Hello moderators, can you mark this down as sort of solved? I have now got my home pc running on linux and with a working internet connection, which is definitely progress. I still have no idea what was wrong before, no matter what or how many times i tried, my modem wouldn't talk back to my pc. I only got the modem in the first place because i wanted to try linux and everything i read suggested that it would make things much easier if i used an external one. It didn't. after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, i decided the problem must be with the version of mandrake that i had. i couldn't get the alternative kanotix distro gowater suggested (work blocked it) so i got a copy of SUSE slick with a magazine - this initially gave me the same problems trying to use the external modem that mandrake did. However, the configuration tools with SUSE (yast?) did detect my internal modem, suggested a package i needed to get it working, and the package was there on the disc provided. I installed it and voila, my internal winmodem was up and running. it seemed very straight forward after trying to get my head round irqs and ios, bios and the like. My advice to anyone experiencing similar problems would be to ensure that what you are reading is up to date - linux might have struggled with winmodems a few years ago but it looks like new releases take them in their stride - don't waste money on an external modem until you are sure you need it. (unless you want to buy a second hand phonic pro v.92 - any takers?) Thanks to all the posters who chipped in trying to help.

I checked the boot messages to make sure the serial driver had the right IRQ, it does (IRQ 3) so i don't think it's that. Modem is working alright on another machine (not running linux).. I'm going to try the alternative distro reccomended and see if that works any better (but i can't get my money back on mandrake 'cos i've opened the box).. pah... anyone got any other suggestions? i'd like to try the modem on the second serial port and see if that makes any difference, but the second one isn't listed on my BIOS so i can't set and don't know it's IO/IRQ numbers...

on the box it says - "phonic pro v.92 external serial modem" - i thought all external modems worked ok. i haven't been able to get wvdial running either..

Ixthusdan, Gowater, thank you for trying to help. I am sure that you are correct, and that these are my failings rather than anything else, but linux doesn't make it easy for the technically inept if they veer from the straight and narrow. I'm fairly sure the modems ok, it's not that old and has worked before. My plan of action now is - print off these posts, take them home, re read them very carefully, re read the modem how to i printed, giving the section on irq particularly close scrutiny. Then calmly and with deliberate precision i will disconnect everything and make sure there are no bits of fluff on the pins or something stupid like that. Then i'm gonna plug it all back together, switch on and go into the bios, re-set to "optimized defaults", make sure OS plug and play is off, then with everything connected and switched on i will try re-installing mandrake 10.0 once more. If it still doesn't find my modem i'll try and configure it as best i know how (running all programs as "root", natch), if none of this works i'll try the alternate distribution suggested and give this a go. If this still doesn't do the trick, i'm either gonna have to shoplift an xp or give up on home computing for a while. I am very grateful for everyone who has tried to help, if i don't respond to your posts very quickly it's because (obviously) i can't get on t'internet at home and i'm not in the office everyday (and i'm fairly sure i'm breaking company internet protocols anyway by posting on a board in work time, but wtf). Anyway, thanks again, and if anyone reads over this and thinks of something obvious that's been overlooked please chip in. i will definitely put this as "solved", from my pc at home, if it ever finally is.

i wonder if this is similar to the problem i posted in "hardware", where kppp doesn't set up or talk to my v92 external modem? Everything i've read suggests external modems should work fine, and yet....

i've done all of the above, run everything as root, changed the baud rate. I've tried changing the port address on the bios, running minicom, i've reinstalled several times and nothing is working. I've bought the right modem, followed the instructions to the letter and i still have no working connection. My modem lights up when queried but returns no results... i'm struggling to appreciate the benefits of linux right now, all it's got me so far is a lot of wasted time and a feeling of banging my head against a wall... is there any point in persisting with it to try and get my internet connection sorted, or should i write linux off as a bad job?

cheers, will give that a go - let you know how i get on after the weekend (typing this from work)... hope i can get somewhere cos i'm trying to resist a mates offer of a dodgy copy of xp

I re-installed because scarecrow advised me to run kppp as root the very first time i configured it and i had already been messing around with kppp for some time trying to get it to work ( i did first try running it as root, but this did not work so i thought the "very first time" bit might be significant). what i did was - click on "configure your computer", typed in my root password at the prompt, clicked through the icons to "system" , clicked the icon which opened a black screen, typed kppp which seemed to open the program, then tryed to configure it (through the graphical interface which had opened)... i hope this was the right way, maybe i'm more of an idiot than i thought, i suspect i'm either overlooking something blindingly obvious or everythings knackered and needs a friendly tap with a sledgehammer... any clues?

thanks for trying to help, but i haven't got any further. I re-installed mandrake 10.0, then logged in as root and installed kppp (it doesn't go in as part of the install) - same thing happened - with the modem on the first serial port i queried it, it lit up but the results of the query were blank and when i tried to connect to the internet it just says "expecting ok" after initialising modem and sits there, with the modem lit to show that it's receiving data from the pc. i've tried altering the serial port settings in the bios but if i change it from the default when i query the modem it comes up with "modem is busy" so i'm presuming the IO - IRQ address is correct. The second serial port is not listed in my bios, so i can't alter the settings for that - when i try and query the modem with it plugged into the second port it just says "modem is busy". I haven't found the xisp program either, i can't find it on my pc after installing Mandrake 10.0 and it's not listed as a package to install from the cds. Any suggestions gratefully received....

i have an external modem, connected to my first serial port. When i query the modem with kppp i can see the lights on my modem come on so i know it's connected, but the query results are all blank. i tried disconnecting my modem and putting it in my second serial port, when i query it then (having changed /dev/tty0 to /dev/tty1) it comes up as "modem is busy". When i query it on the first serial port (with modem still connected to the second) kppp does exactly as if it were still on the first. I tried re-installing a couple of times, and i've read loads of stuff which is just compounding my confusion - i've been tried to use setserial to check what port it thinks the modem is on but my mandrake 10.0 hasn't got setserial included. i tried querying it with minicom too, to see if that made any difference - i got minicom up and running but i can't even type any commands into that, minicom just sits there and even pressing "ctrl A Z" doesn't do anything. I just want to get my email up and running, i don't have the cash to shell out for XP so any advice would be gratefully received.