[Leaplist] Problem with Modem

[John Simpson]

On 2007-03-08, at 1157, <heavenly at 695online.com>  
<heavenly at 695online.com> wrote:
>
> Wrote to you a week ago on my Mepis install not finding my US  
> Robotics 5610B Modem. It said for Linux 2.5 & higher. Instructions  
> say the Linux Kernel has the drivers built-in so they only provide  
> MS drivers with the modem. Talked to US Robotics tech. help and he  
> said he didn't know why they say it can be used with Linux. Said he  
> will look into it and get an answer.

that's funny, USR's support web page has an RPM file which contains a  
linux driver for this modem. it says that it's been tested with  
redhat 6 and higher.

http://www.usr.com/support/product-template.asp?prod=5610b

what bothers me is that it's a binary-only driver- apparently they  
don't make the source code available, and i would be willing to bet  
that you have to agree to some draconian "no reverse engineering"  
clause before you're legally allowed to use it.

also remember that redhat 6 used the 2.2 kernel... how well is a  
driver that old going to work with a 2.6 kernel?

THAT would be my question for USR/3Com, is "where's the source?" at  
least if you had the source code, you could either compile it by  
hand, or turn it into a debian package (or whatever kind of package  
works with your distro, i'm not familiar with mepis at all.)

also insert standard disclaimer about not using "winmodems" to begin  
with... get a modem with a real UART (universal asynchronous receiver  
transmitter, the actual "serial port" chip.) usually they're  
external, but they're worth it in the long run. what happens if you  
need to do a hardware reset on the modem? with an internal PCI card  
you have to power the machine down... with an external modem, you  
click a switch off and on, and you're done.

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| John M. Simpson    ---   KG4ZOW   ---    Programmer At Large |
| http://www.jms1.net/                         <jms1 at jms1.net> |
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| http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4312730277175242198 |
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