[ltp] Best distribution for an A30P = ? - regarding Lucent(?) modem

[Richard Neill]

Marcin Trybus wrote:
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> Bill Sheppard wrote:
> 
>>I don't you'll find any installation which handles the softmodem well,
>>but it's pretty manageable by following the directions at
>>http://www.linmodems.org.
>>
>>SOTL wrote:
>>
>>>I received a email back from the SuSE development team informing me that
>>>the win modem software is priperiatory and would only be included in
>>>the commercial version that was the reason for the purchase of the
>>>commercial version. This does work under Mandrake 10.1 but then there
>>>are many more recent developments particularly in the realm of
>>>networking that were not developed at that level.
> 
> 
> 
> I guess you have a Lucent chipset modem, such as one on my T23. In
> that case all seems lost. I use Mandriva myself and the modem worked
> flawlessly under 10.1. In 2006 it doesn't work anymore. The driver
> module (source can be found via http://www.linmodems.org) does not
> load since kernel 2.6.12 (if I recall correctly). Or was it 2.6.10?
> I'm a lousy programmer so I never looked into it. Moreover my friend
> installed DSL at that time so I "inherited" an aged external modem
> (usable, albeit bulky).
> 
> 

Actually, the news is good. I have an A22p, with the Lucent modem.
The new "Martian" driver runs in userspace, so no more tainted kernels!

This is from my Howto on the A22p (which I haven't yet finished, so it's 
not online yet - will do!)

I'm using Mandriva 2006 + a self-compiled 2.6.16.20 kernel from kernel.org

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As of kernel 2.6.15, the internal kernel interfaces have changed [eg 
MODULE_PARM() becomes module_param()] and the ltmodem driver above no 
longer compiles. Furthermore, there is now a much better way, putting 
ths proprietary stuff into userspace (which no longer taints the 
kernel). More details on the Martian driver are here
http://martian.barrelsoutofbond.org/ . To install and use it:

    1. Download martian240206.tar.gz.
http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/packages/ltmodem/kernel-2.6/martian/martian240206.tar.gz
    2. Untar. Read the README.
    3. In the driver/ directory, do make clean; make; make install.
    4. Add martian_drv to /etc/modprobe.preload.
    5. In the helper/ directory, do make; make install.
    6. Run /usr/sbin/martian_helper /dev/MODEMNAME. This creates 
/dev/MODEMNAME, which talks to martian_drv, which in turn talks to the 
modem.
    7. Add this to /etc/rc.local:

echo "Starting martian_helper on /dev/modem (unless ltserial is loaded)"
/sbin/lsmod | grep -q ltserial || /usr/sbin/martian_helper /dev/modem 
 >/var/log/martian_helper 2>&1  &

Note: it is necessary to repeat the above (make clean; make; make 
install) every time a new kernel is installed.


HTH,

Richard




rn214@hermes.cam.ac.uk  **  http://www.richardneill.org
Richard Neill, Trinity College, Cambridge, CB21TQ, U.K.