Modem – Update and Installation Tips

As an update to the problem with the non functional modem here are some comments from Bron Gondwana. Because I do not need the modem at the moment I have not tried them. Also, I do plan to do a fresh installation of gentoo or ubunto in the near future – stay tuned for an installation report.

Hopefully, these comments can be of help to someone 🙂 Here we go:

Trouble with some kernel modules:

 One thing I notice is that you've had trouble
 with the modem.  I discovered that the important
 thing was to make sure you blacklist the module.

   i810_audio

 The current debian puts it in     
 /etc/hotplug/blacklist.d/alsa-base - but in the
 past I had to put it in /etc/hostplug/blacklist 
 myself.  

 You'll probably want to check /etc/mod* as well
 to make sure you're not explicitly loading it anywhere.

How to install:

 I'm currently running the 2.6.10 kernel packaged
 by Debian, but I'm seriously considering building
 2.6.11.5 myself because I believe the kernel
 sleep is working there - I have a friend who's 
 made it work on his (non Dell) laptop just last
 week, and he's sent me a bunch of patches.  If I
 get it working I'll let you know.

 ALSA modules snd_intel8x0 and snd_intel8x0m.

 snd_intel8x0m is the modem interface module, and 
 the driver is a non-free driver from Smartlink 
 (http://www.smlink.com/) specifically:

  http://www.smlink.com/content.aspx?id=132

  or http://www.smlink.com/content.aspx?id=135

 I use the Debian package (sl-modem-daemon) which
 runs:

   /usr/sbin/slmodemd --alsa -c AUSTRALIA hw:1

 You may at least want to change the country!  
 You need to read the readme to see the instructions 
 for building it with ALSA support.

But no fax modem:

 Oh, I forgot to mention... the reason I haven't 
 replied recently - I was going to try and send a 
 fax on it yesterday, and I did try - but it's 
 not possible at the moment - the Linux version 
 of the softmodem software doesn't support it.  
 Pity.  It was the main value to me as well, since 
 I have broadband and wireless at both work and 
 home - I don't even plug it into anything but 
 power usually!