[UCLA-LUG] (no subject)

[Erik Hovland]

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On Thu, May 11, 2000 at 11:53:33AM -0700, Jana von Stein wrote:
> I was told by a friend that most internal modems are configured
> to only work with Windows if the computer you buy comes with Windows.

Your friend was half right. Most cheap internal modems actually are
very dumb and do not have sufficient hardware to actually be a modem.
So the CPU does the rest. This requires special drivers which the
hardware manufacturer usually writes for windows only. And even though
they do not have anything special about their hardware they typically
refuse to open the specs to said hardware to make it possible for
someone else to write a linux driver.

*rant* What is so dang special about a weak DSP and an ISA/PCI
interface circuit that these bozos have to hide the spec for?
Commodity hardware is just that, commodity. Any manufacturer can make
one easily.

> -is it possible to somehow configure my modem so that it works with Linux?

If it is a 'winmodem', no. But just in case look up your particular
modem at this website:
http://www.kcdata.com/~gromitkc/winmodem.html

It ought to tell you definitively the working status of your modem.

If it isn't a 'winmodem' and it is in an ISA slot chances are it just
needs to be configured with isapnptools. Which is pretty easy to do.

> -if the above is impossible, I suppose this means I have to buy an
> external    modem.  Do any of you know if all external modems work
> with Linux?

You could buy an internal modem too, just not a 'winmodem'. Use the
above URL to figure out which modem will actually work and then hit
pricewatch (http://www.pricewatch.com/) and find the best price. I am
decidely in the 'external' church in the ext/int modem religous war.
But I do not pretend to convert every heathen :). And AFAIK all
external modems that use the standard serial port work with linux
*period*.

E

--=20
Erik Hovland
USC Linux User Group President
http://sclug.usc.edu/~ehovland/
GnuPG public key: http://sclug.usc.edu/~ehovland/ehovland.gpg

"Your bastard child of a network has grown up, gone to counseling
 and doesn't want to talk to you anymore." - shupe


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