Re: modems

["L. C. Robinson" <lcr@onewest.net>]

On Mon, 25 Mar 2002, Jack Heim wrote:

> I did a little reading before I bought my modem and the
> prevailing wisdom on the linux newsgroups was to use an
> external modem.

I have had little difficulty with my succession of internal
modems.  This does tie you to a certain kind of bus, in the Intel
PC realm though.  The question is, will the modem, or the
computer (bus) become obsolete first?  A lot of the old timers in
the newsgroups will also value the indicator lights on an
external modem (which you could probably care less about -- the
same info can pretty much had by monitoring the messages log
anyway).
 
> An internal modem is going to add a third com port to your
> machine. By default, com3 would be on the same IRQ as com1. If
> you get an external modem, you can connect it to com1 or com2
> and avoid that problem.

This is no problem.  Here is my config for using the 3rd serial
port (/dev/ttyS2):

setserial /dev/ttyS2  port 0x03e8 irq 9 autoconfig

Save that line in /etc/rc.d/rc.serial (on a Red Hat system).
Make sure, of course, that "setserial" was installed on your
system.  Note that I am using one of the 3 unused printer
IRQ lines (IRQ9) -- traditionally IRQs 5,7, and 9 are used for
printers.  You must configure the modem to match, of course (see
below).  You will need to avoid using ports and interrupts used
by other cards.  For instance, I couldn't use IRQ 5 because my
sound card was using it.  Do: 
less /proc/interrupts
less /proc/ioports
and
less /etc/modules.conf
to see what is used.

> A friend of mine has an internal modem in his machine and he
> got it to work by disabling com2 on the motherboard and forcing
> the modem to use com2. I don't know how he did that though and

Pretty easy.  Just disable your 2nd serial port (in bios, these
days, where the serial port is part of the motherboard), and
configure the internal modem to the same io port and IRQ it used.

If you have a plug-n-pray only modem, and it is ISA bus, you
would need to use the isapnptools package to configure it.  

> Anyway, I think you'll be able to do what you want through a
> combination of an external modem and mgetty.

Yes, mgetty is the most capable getty version, and would be
needed for all those requirements.
 
> At 09:27 PM 3/23/02 -0600, you wrote:
> 
> >What is a good modem to get that works under linux that can do
> >the following: 1. voice/data/fax 2. trace the calls coming in
> >if it's on an inside line rather than an outside direct line,
> >i.e you have to dial 9 to get an outside line.  3. would allow
> >me to hook my regular phone up to it 4. would be able to block
> >callers based on what number they call from.  I use both
> >windows and linux, and am on a lan there, but at home, I will
> >have to go back to dialup again. I don't even use the modem in
> >my system right now, but could hook it up for blocking calls
> >if there's no other way but to let them go to voice mail and
> >never answer any calls. *60 doesn't get in to a prompt to do
> >it, and dialing 9*60 doesn't work either.  Thanks.

-- 
L. C. Robinson
reply to no_spam+munged_lcr@onewest.net.invalid

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