Modem configuration

DO NOT RELY ON THIS PAGE TO CONFIGURE MODEMS WITHOUT ALSO LOOKING AT THE DIALUP CONFIGURATION PAGE - YOU NEED TO USE THE RIGHT PHONE NUMBER

Detecting

To detect a modem and make sure it is working, use wvdialconf. The canonical way to use it is to log in as root on a terminal and run "wvdialconf /etc/wvdial.conf" but for our purposes, you can just run "wvdialconf test" as a normal user. This will probe the serial ports, starting with whatever is linked to /dev/modem and print out the results of the test to the console. It works with ISA modems, PCI hardware modems and linmodems that have the drivers installed. It is also the back end for gnome-ppp, a popular dialer.

Modem types

ISA Modems

We no longer use ISA modems, so this information is largely historical.

ISA hardware modems are generally set to specific IRQ's and I/O ports by jumpers. If you are having trouble getting the modem detected, make sure of the following:

• Confirm the settings. Most ISA modems should be set to ttyS1
• Disable serial port 2 in the bios. Make sure serial port 1 does not conflict.
• Reserve IRQ 3 for Legacy equipment in the PnP/PCI settings
• Remember to set up the /dev/modem link

ln -s /dev/ttyS1 /dev/modem

PCI hardware modem (ttyS14)

In older Freek Boxes, a PCI hardware modem will not work unless the device is created. This information can be ignored on Ubuntu and later Debian systems.

If the modem isn't found. or, modem shows up on the "serial" step in basiccheck (at ttyS14), but it doesn't respond when tested with the dialer. and anyway, what the heck is ttyS14? or - if the modem isn't found in the serial step (you only have one serial port detected), you can check if this applies using dmesg. try

guest@freekbox:~$ dmesg | grep ttyS | less 

(this searches dmesg for lines that contain the string ttyS) and see if you have a line that refers to ttyS14. If you do, this is your issue.
solution: To talk to this modem, you gotta create ttyS14:

guest@freekbox:~$ su
freekbox:/home/guest# cd /dev
freekbox:/dev# MAKEDEV ttyS14
freekbox:/dev# ln -s ttyS14 modem

Linmodems

We no longer use "linmodems" in our boxes because of licensing issues.

See also

• Dialup configuration for the software end of things.