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Speedtouch adsl modem setup - Linux very newbie...


klutzini
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I am also starting to wonder if the Australian suppliers to Telstra Bigpond have nobbled (at Telstras instructions on behalf of Microsoft) the modems to make them unworkable in LINUX.  Since they are supplied as part of the ADSL deal and Telstra say the do not support LINUX then they could legally get away with it.

 

I am currently here from my W2K os and using the latest Mozilla but have not been able to get Mozilla Mail working so I am stuck with that inept piece of bastardry called Outlook Express.

Why must you constantly suspect a conspiracy with IT companies?

 

Telstra although they are often questionable in their actions, do still provide a reasonable product.

 

Why on earth would they spend the time and money modifying all the modems they send out to not work in Linux? Thats just ludicrous. They do not support linux means they do not provide assistence or tech support for linux users. It doesnt mean they cripple modems! As it is, they have little to gain by offering tech support for Linux users as we are still in the minority, and most of the time people who use Linux would turn to a forum like this instead of calling a call centre.

 

Telstra are not against Linux. In the telstra download sites there are Linux distributions you can download without it going towards your usage. Telstra operate GameArena which are easily some of the best online gaming servers available to Australians. These are free for everyone of every ISP to use and they even provide a Linux authentication program. If they didnt want Linux runing on their network, they would try and stop this project. http://bpalogin.sourceforge.net

At one stage Telstra were going to move all of their desktops to Linux. I am not sure whether this is still going ahead but it shows telstra are not anti Linux.

 

I am going to be setting up a friend's computer, he has Telstra ADSL and a speedtouch modem, I will keep you posted how he goes.

 

Dont make up conspiracy theories without the evidence.

 

And you aren't stuck with Outlook Express. Chances are you have misconfigured something. Besides there are more options available, such as Sylpheed and Mozilla Thunderbird - which is pretty much mozilla mail but it has it's differences.

 

iphitus

 

Sylpheed

http://sylpheed-claws.sourceforge.net/win32/

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Hi iphitus. Don't be so touchy about the alleged conspiracy thing. Nobody else took the comment seriously because it wasn't meant to be taken seriously. It was a "piss take"

I am not and never have been anti Telstra. If I had been then I would not have had my phone account ONLY with Telstra for these past 49yrs and all my Internet years except for 2months of prepaid dialup with Optus at the very beginning. (Optus was a total disaster with constant drop outs) I only started with computers in Nov.1998.

 

I look forward to following up with you on your success or otherwise with your friends computer and ADSL. I wish you good luck with it. There must be more than just a couple of us Linux users that are using Telstras ADSL and the fact that it only seems to be just a few of us having trouble is odd to say the least.

 

Maybe all the other Linux users have got it to work OK and it is just that none of them come to MUB or JustLinux.

 

Actually Telstra is still slowly moving along with their internal adoption of Linux, they are just not talking about it much. When I spoke to a woman at Telstra about the usage meter not working on my account, She asked was everything else Ok and I said yes but I am trying to set up the ADSL in Mandrake 10 and the problems I was having. She knew about Mandrake and understood exactly what I was talking about by the questions she asked about Mandrake in particular. So Telstra staff obviously know a lot more about Linux than was my experience with them a year and half ago. So I reckon we will eventually get support for Linux some time in the not too distant future.

 

That Outlook Express bit was sorted out a day or two after my post, that is why it was never referred to again.

 

I Look forward to hearing from you ref your friends computer connection.

 

Cheers. John.

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Hi, I signed up here just so I can thank Arthur for getting me over this problem. I don't think my problem was as complicated as John's, but I was nonetheless tearing my hair out over it for nearly a week.

 

I won't lie - my comportment and indeed personal grooming suffered.

 

The way MCC restarts the network (ifdown/ifup eth0) had me convinced that this was the root of the problem. I tried every ethernet config you can imagine, with no difference to the DSL hookup results. I was pretty close to self-destruction (and by god I'd have taken the darn computer with me, ha ha haar).

 

Tried Arthur's shell-command tips, modem_run followed by pppd call adsl, and lo and behold - ppp0 UP and indeed RUNNING! Thank you Arthur, from the heart of my bottom.

 

Like a reformed alcoholic who speaks at AA meetings, I now feel the need to help others, towards the day when all our Speedtouches work in harmony and we may Konquer the Kosmos together...

 

Umm sorry, I do tend to go off on one. Anyway, John, i don't know what is at the root of your problem, but here are some observations:

 

1) Many people say the 2.6.3 kernel is to blame. UNTRUE!

1) My setup has a user module, not a kernel module (I think)

1) I see you are using the firmware alcaudsl.sys - I used this initially, but it did not work for me.

1) How quickly does the modem_run command return? If it's instantly, the firmware should be loaded. If not, try rephrasing it thus:

 

[root @ localhost root] modem_run -m -v 2 -f /path/to/alcaudsl.sys

 

(The extra -v switch is for verbose output, so you can see any errors this throws up.)

 

1) If there seem to be errors, or even if there aren't and the command still returns slow, try hunting for some alternatives. The one I used is called mgmt.o (this is for a silver 330 model), I can't remember the URL for it but do a google and you should find it.

1) Don't be downhearted about the line !/bin/bash not working. It's not actually a user command, but rather something that's used in shell scripts as a first line (saying 'please run these commands through the bash shell'). You don't need it when you're already in the shell.

 

I've said enough, but hope some of this helps. I'll be back!

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Hello Havin_it. Welcome to MUB and thanks for making a contribution of something else I can try.

 

I like your sense of humour. Spot on. I am sure Arthur will appreciate it also. He he He. Heart. Bottom. He He He :D :D :D

 

I got my CDROM set of Mandrake 10 OE yesterday afternoon and will install this to replace the Community Edition before I try setting up ADSL again.

 

I will keep everyone posted as to how things eventuate.

 

I have made myself a promise that when this problem is fixed then I am going to write a DETAILED STEP BY STEP HOWTO on the subject and send a copy to Telstra Bigpond and to this and other Linux sites.

 

Cheers everyone. John.

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I have made myself a promise that when this problem is fixed then I am going to write a DETAILED STEP BY STEP HOWTO on the subject and send a copy to Telstra Bigpond and to this and other Linux sites.

 

Cheers everyone. John.

Good Idea to send it to bigpond

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Given how many peeps are having nightmares with this modem (DSL generally infact), a copy should also go to MandrakeSoft for the 'Hi, I'm new here, why doesn't anything work page'

 

Well I mucked it up again and have done 2 more clean installs in the last 24 hours. I just couldn't resist diddling with eth0, and I think that's what did it (waaaaaah!) But I'm up again now (Yaaay!)

 

More observations: Don't do ANY net configuration while installing. The system summary I get on install says Network: lan and I didn't touch it at this stage (might be important). As long as the modem is plugged in when you're setup and ready to configure it, that should be enough.

 

I noticed from watching the 'verbose' startup that eth0 initialisation FAILED. That doesn't matter - in fact it's the only circumstance in which I've made DSL work.

 

If you're lucky enough to have a floppy drive (unlike me) have the mgmt.o or whatever file ready on that, and copy into /usr/share/speedtouch - I had to copy it out of my windoze partition manually because the option in Control Centre to retrieve the file from there DOES NOT WORK. EVER. If you haven't run the config process yet, you'll need to create the directory.

 

Run through the connection setup from Mandrake Control Centre - you might want to launch it from a shell so you can track any errors (there'll probably be some), like so:

 

[foo @ bar root]$ su

<enter root password>

[root @ bar root]# drakconf <this'll launch the Control Centre>

 

Do the configuration through Hardware > Hardware > Alcatel speedtouch modem > Run config tool, keep watching the shell output (mine always complains about not having a floppy - well DUH!)

 

Nothing very complex in the config process, the pacages you'll need are installed as required, one less obvious thing to do is click 'Advanced' on the ISP settings page and enter your country's VTI / VCI numbers. If your ISP is really nice they might have explained what the other advanced setting next to them is - I haven't the faintest idea myself.

 

For the radio-buttons that follow, I'd suggest: NO to start at boot, NO to restart Network, and YES to try connection now (so you can see the shell output when it FAILS).

 

If it doesn't FAIL and you are now connected, leave this page immediately. You sicken me.

 

Jot down the error output you've had from the shell, then try the shell commands modem_run followed be pppd call adsl (as detailed above). It didn't work for me at this stage, but I think I now know why - read on....

 

Restart your computer. You need a break. You could hit Esc to watch the Verbose outputif you like.

 

When you logbackon, go and have a look at the file /etc/peers/adsl (I did this because I tried the shell commands and they still didn't succeed). You may find that the VTI / VCI numbers are not the ones you entered! I entered 0,38 and found this file to contain 0,56 ! :screwy:

 

You need to be root to modify this, so open a shell there and open it with 'kwrite adsl' - or whatever textpad you prefer. Using Kwrite dumps several pages of rather worrying output to the shell, and seems to leave a phantom backup of the file in the directory, but don't worry too much about that.

 

Once that's done, if you're me, the shell commands for connection may just work.

 

If not, you too are a victim of the Redmond-Telstra-CIA-Colonel Sanders zionist alien reptile conspiracy! Give up now! They're watching your house right now! Draw the curtains and fire up your Windows screensaver - quick!

 

PS - John, if you want to give it a try - http://home.planet.nl/~andje000/mgmt.o

(this one works for me - on modem_run I get the proper LED cycle same as on Windows startup)

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Thanks Havin it.

 

Well I installed the Mandrake 10 OE and tried everything everyone has suggested but still no luck. However this time I noticed that I was also having trouble with my USB Scanner.

Investigating this by means sane-find-scanner in Konsole came up with the following readout and I am starting to wonder whether this is totally a USB problem because I get NO ERROR messages at anytime just a timing out then a message that no connection exists. As you can see from the readout, the system thinks it is an Alcatel scanner and not a modem.

 

[john@localhost john]$ lsusb

bash: lsusb: command not found

[john@localhost john]$ sane-find-scanner

 

# No SCSI scanners found. If you expected something different, make sure that

# you have loaded a SCSI driver for your SCSI adapter.

 

found USB scanner (vendor=0x04b8 [EPSON], product=0x0112 [EPSON Scanner]) at libusb:005:002

found USB scanner (vendor=0x06b9 [ALCATEL], product=0x4061 [speedTouch 500 Series]) at libusb:002:002

# Your USB scanner was (probably) detected. It may or may not be supported by

# SANE. Try scanimage -L and read the backend's manpage.

 

# Scanners connected to the parallel port or other proprietary ports can't be

# detected by this program.

 

# You may want to run this program as root to find all devices. Once you

# found the scanner devices, be sure to adjust access permissions as

# necessary.

[john@localhost john]$

 

I wonder if anyone has ideas on this and to how I might get round it.

 

Cheers. John.

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Guest SNMINC

Greetings To All,

I too am a newbie who is having big problems with Mandrake official 10. I recently installed 9.1, managed to get on line and felt like the dog with two tails. I then decided to upgrade to version 10 (Big mistake) I can no longer get on line and when I try and configure my speedtouch usb adsl modem mandrake keeps requesting installation disk 1 no matter which of the 4 installation discs I insert it just keeps on asking for installation disc 1.

 

Trawling some forums I concluded the kernel was the most likely source of my usb problems so I went looking for 2.6.3-7mdk but found 2.6.3-9mdk when I tried to install it mandrake rejected the file because of an invalid signature.

 

:help:

 

So good people, my questions are, what is the most recent stable kernel and where could I download it from?

 

Then once I have it how do I install it?

 

Many Thanks in advance

 

S & M Inc

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I went to my friends house the other day and:

 

plugged the LAN cable from my modem into my laptop

 

dhcpcd eth0

 

And i was up and running, no drivers or anything. I just plugged the LAN in and connected via DHCP.

 

So if you are busting yourself with USB, try the LAN cable, it might be much easier :)

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>I noticed from watching the 'verbose' startup that eth0

>initialisation FAILED.  That doesn't matter - in fact it's the only

>circumstance in which I've made DSL work.

 

>When you logbackon, go and have a look at the file

>/etc/peers/adsl (I did this because I tried the shell

>commands and they still didn't succeed).  You may

>find that the VTI / VCI numbers are not the ones you

>entered!  I entered 0,38 and found this file to contain 0,56 !

Havin' it,

 

Thanks for you info. I haven't tried this yet as I'm waiting for my 10.0 DVD to arrive, but I expect to soon...

 

Do you have a LAN connection? Does that eth0 initialisation failure cause you any problems if you do?

 

I really need a working LAN *and* ADSL connection.

 

I noticed the VCI/VPI bizareness too this when I tried this a while ago!

 

I'm starting to think that 80 quid for a new modem/router is going to be less trouble than trying to get this to work reliably.

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Kinda late for this, I've been very busy lately (no internet access for more than a week! :help:), but you're welcome. The day will come when linux drivers are installed in less than 2 days! :cheesy:

 

/me tries to imagine what a heart of a bottom looks like

 

ewwwwwwww :P

 

Anyway, just PM me if needed, I can't visit this board as often as I did before. ;)

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I can confirm that Arthur's instructions DO work using a clean install from the Official 10.0 DVD, so thank you very much Arthur!

 

I used the connection wizard to make a new ADSL connection, but in reality I used this just to make the config files. I still had to manually edit the /etc/ppp/peers/adsl file because the wizard refused to properly set the VCI and VPI numbers.

 

I do have a follow-up question, though...

 

Sometimes when I reboot my machine the line in modprobe.conf where you set "alias speedtch off" seems to disappear. Does anyone know of a way where I can make this a permanent change? Can I/should I do a rebuild of the Kernel with the speedtch module disabled?

 

In summary, I'm just glad I got this working eventually. This has been a huge pain in the ar5e to get set up properly. It worked perfectly for me in 9.0 and 9.2.

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