no modem = no internet = lost user

[h00man]

I've tried to install and encourage various people to use knoppix, or other linux distros.

The modem, internet access, is usually where I have to give them Windows back.

Having moved from New York to Sao Paulo, in Brazil, I'm having this problem much more often, as people here have very old computers, with cheap modems.

Lightweight Linux with modem drivers is what they need, but there's no such distribution.

Buying another modem, waiting for it to be installed, visiting linmodem.org and recompiling the kernel, suggesting DSL, etc is just a prelude until someone says "forget it.. let's just install windows".

[lamerie]

It's a PITA isn't it? I found the solution lies in external modems connected to a serieal port. I've picked them up on eBay for £5, and one at a car boot sale for a £1!. Knoppix seems to want the modem on /dev/modem, all you need to do is change this to /dev/ttyS0 and there it is! Most internal winmodems don't seem to like Linux (cos M$ won't tell anyone the codes, the b******'s) so it's just a case of finding a hardware modem. I've set up three total PC noobs like this (no Windoze preconceptions see? ) and once I've set up kppp, Firefox, and mail they're rockin', no plaintve telephone call so far...

[h00man]

I can get a modem to work with linux. So can you, and the next guy reading this post.

We know what a 'driver' is, what 'knoppix' is, and what a 'modem' is.

Give a knoppix or any linux CD to anyone else, and they'll most likely never reach the internet with it.

The best Linux I've seen with modem drivers so far is Kurumin, a knoppix-distro made by a brazilian who apparently knows his users. Scanmodem and various modem drivers, etc are right on the menu.

People here go to stores and *buy* 32mb Pentium 100 computers and win95 cd's with them. Yes, in 2004. Because they can afford those. They cost about a month's pay for the average wage-earner.

Spending an extra $10 for another (linux compatible) modem isn't too interesting. The whole computer ate up plenty, and can be made to work with Win95.

I'd expect that scenario to be very common in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, perhaps also Russia, China, and a lot of places,

It would greatly reduce the digital divide to get all these people a knoppix-like cd which made their modem work. Any modem.

Somehow we need to get software modems to work in Linux - for users, easily.

[gowator]

Most people in the world dont have running water let alone electricity.

I see this again and again that those in developed countries just assume they guy at the other end can just go and get broadband or spend £5 on a modem.

The bottom line is that without internet access you cant get online and download a driver for your modem and most noobies are not into patching the kernel to start off...

When I moved to France i had no phone line for 3 months... what a nightmare. I had no access to drivers for the linmodem in my laptop and ended up at a friends house using his broadband (luckily I had a supported NIC) .. but even then you end up playing with deps and stuff unless you are REALLY connected.

I have lived in many other countries where even having a telephone line is a luxury... braodband a dream and in at times running water and electricity were luxuries.

we have plenty of old PC's which should be great for third world countries to have internet access but its getintg increasingly harder to find a distro compact enough to run on them and provide the same functionailty as the old win98 Cd's....

[Cuddles]

I can't agree more, with this complete thread...

I, for one, was caught in this same issue, a winmodem, though it was a supported, and capable of becoming a LinModem, was a PITA to get working, and for that matter, never was "completely" working as it should.

My resolve was to get the "external" seriel version of a modem, worked perfectly as soon as I got the symlink from ttyS0 to /dev/modem - but people are less apt to know, or do some of these things.

With AOL, CompuServ, EarthLink, Airstream, MSN, as ISP providers, not much of them even have a "Linux" connection script, let alone would know, in there phone support, how to handle a call from someone who was running Linux ( I would know ).

For me, DSL, a T1, broadband, none of these are valid options, not for availability, but due to costs. Oh, I wish I could beef-up from a 56k dial-up connection, but costs prevent the "dream" coming true. For "joe public" this may be the same truth. For others, if they are "thinking" of migrating from a Windows OS to any Linux, what "hardware" is supported "out-of-the-box" is very important, since the normal quip is going to be "well, my Windows works fine!" - thus, in the salesman's lingo, the sale is gone at that moment.

Most people are "immediate gratification" driven, if it doesn't work right now, they will either "shelf" it, or pitch it. Take for instance all those AOL CD install disks everyone gets in the mail, every couple of months. Mine become "Wall Art", but many, try it, if it works the first time it installs, they are hooked, and will probably stay hooked until AOL goes out of business. If it doesn't work, right off, it probably gets pitched, and any new disks they get in the mail, go the same way.

I have a friend, who, I would say, hates M$, would leave there OS in a minute, but will never leave them. Why? Because nothing else runs on anything, right out of the box. I tried to get them to run Knoppix, right from the boot CD, and they went right back to Windows. They booted Knoppix perfectly, all of there hardware was detected, even there WinModem, but, since they couldn't just use the WinModem as is, they shutdown, and went back into Windows, where the modem just worked. True, the WinModem issue is a "conspiricy" of M$ to keep people in there OS, but, it has come down to the simple fact that, it now limits the viability of competition. Not one "other" OS can compete with M$ when you get down to the hardware level, especially when it hits home with a modem. Everyone wants to "surf the internet", the term has become synonomous to what people expect from there system, and the OS that they run on it. Most people, "joe public" that is, don't care about what there system has, you ask most of them about what there system has, and you can get answers like: "a fast system", or "a really cool system", or "it runs stuff really fast"... They don't have a clue what is actually inside the system, what processor it has, how much memory, what size hard drive it has, no clue at all - and if you try and pry an answer about what is actually inside there system, they will just say: "oh, its the biggest hard drive I could get."

Funny thing is, they really don't need to know what is inside there system. Microsoft runs it, and without them ever having to know, thats all that counts to them. They only need to know this stuff if they run something else, something else, I might add, that makes them have to know, either because it doesn't just work, or requires them to research why it isn't just working. They don't want to know whats in there system, and they don't want to "play" with it to get it to work, especially when a M$ OS just runs what they have, without any work on there part.

Software, is by far, the worst of "shelf-ware", in the public - it doesn't work, it gets tossed -=- but when you get to the OS level, people don't want to know anything about it - it just has to run, and with whatever they have as hardware, or its gone. My friend is a perfect example of this, he wouldn't even want to create a symlink from /dev/modem to a seriel port, and the OS is gone. Add into this having to research finding a driver for his WinModem, and the sale is lost, no chance for any recovery either.

As long as motherboard manufacturers mount modems on the motherboard, WinModems are going to be around, and for that, I think any OS needs to have that support, or anything that doesn't "right-out-of-the-box" work on it, doesn't stand a chance of getting the sale. You can stand outside of Wal-Mart, Costco, or a Sam's Club, and hand out your OS to people, but until the modem issue is provided for, in the "right out of the box" attituide, no one is going to use it. ( considering the people who will be trying it )

Yes, modems need support, still. Even in the days of "super fast" internet connections that are available, modems still need to be provided for. Simply because, motherboards come with a modem already installed on them, and most people won't buy another modem if the modem they already have works, or should work, in there OS. Most people would rather change there OS, to get there modem to work, rather than buy, yet another, modem, to get there OS to work with it. ( speaking mostly of the "joe public" here )

I, on the other hand, I knew the issues of WinModems, and bought a motherboard specifically without any modem on the motherboard, and then bought an external one because of the problems I had with a WinModem on my "older" system. But, a "normal" person would not have done that, they would have bought the motherboard with as much stuff as they could, already on the motherboard, and then tried to get there OS to run on it. If that OS didn't work with the motherboard, they might have gone back to the store and asked for another OS that did work with there system. Or the tech would have sold them more hardware, which they wouldn't have agreed to. Lastly, the tech might have gotten them to "upgrade" there OS to something that would work with there hardware, probably another version of Windows. ( again, "joe public" )

So, to reiterate, modem drivers could be the difference between an OS getting used, or tossed, imho.

Ms.Cuddles

[h00man]

The Internet is the killer app today. Unfortunately linux today can't do it as well as Windows, for 98% of those with a modem.

In the past I installed Suse 8.0, Red Hat 6.0, Red Hat 7.0, Red Hat 9.0, Knoppix 3.2, Fedora core 1.

In my view, anyone who knows what "linux" and "winmodem" is, is no longer a newbie.

I removed many of those several times because I couldn't reach the Internet using it.

Even for troubleshooting the modem, I needed to switch back to Windows, get on the net, search for workarounds, then write down the information I found, switch back to Linux, try out those changes...

What if something needed to be downloaded INTO linux? Couldn't do it from windows. Mount a vfat partitition? Didn't know anything about that.

Use another computer? That's a hefty requirement for installing Linux. I didn't always have one, along with another monitor, etc.

Without decent internet access, it's impossible to troubleshoot anything, and few have the patience while there's a ready solution working - just one reboot away.

The only time I've seen Linux install modems is with Kurumin. Unfortunately it's based on binary drivers, but it's some progress I think.

I understand some of the challenges to write these drivers. Some hefty hacking will be required.

But I also see how not having them is keeping linux to those who have Ethernet, and away from those who have modems.

In other words, Linux today basically won't work for anyone at home with a winmodem.

If you go buy a brand-new laptop, or most any computer, 90% of them will come with a winmodem. Linux may even come free with it, or be downloaded free. Internet access will cost another PCMCIA or some other modem - plus ability to install it? That likely won't happen.

[user unknown]

It's a bad joke to be angry about linux not supporting winmodems!

In the mid-90ies, there wasn't such a thing as a winmodem - only modems.
You plugged them into the serial-line, and could use it with every software, by sending this funny AT-commands.

There are some chips which are not the cheapest, and the manufactors started producing crippled modems without those chips, and passing the work to the processor.
You need a driver for these cripplemodems, which saves some bucks for the chips. But the manufactors only produce drivers for windows and keep their code secret/ closed.

So there are manufactors, engineering these cripplemodems and making closed source drivers.
There are customers buing these modems.
How can you affront linux for that situation?

[nishtya]

I hate winmodems. I hate dialup even more. When the terrific external modem I had on my main machine finally kicked the bucket, the least costly fix was purchasing another external modem for I think it was around $40US - probably could've done better at newegg or such but I need it NOW. Which was definitely cheaper than cable at about $40US more EVERY MONTH. Two winmodems sitting gathering dust since I became I linux fan. I had to dig out an old (rescued from a garbage bin - somebody tossed it years ago apparently only because the outer casing was cracked) practical peripherals 33.3 for my secondary machine. I have two older machines that would happily run lightweight linux distros, I don't bother fixing them up with such (and probably learning lots more about linux in the process) because I cannot for the life of me get the winmodems going in linux. I was just today given a link to yet another driver package for them. Both use the intel 536ep chipset which supposedly has been made to work on linux but I will be damned if I know of anyone that has gotten the plain linux 2.4 kernel ones going - nobody has got drivers for debian for these it seems.

I live in fear that the external serial interface hardware modem will stop being manufactured because everybody in the States, it seems has cable but me (and Cuddles ) Beware, though I am not sure, when modem shopping I saw USB externals labeled NOT compatible with linux, external winmodems?
Since modems will eventually become relatively useless here, why don't they release the code? And what can the mfrs be making on these stupid things anyway - winmodems retail for what, like around $10US I paid for mine. Dell and all are probably dropping them in for a buck or two cost. What kind of profit could there be in them? Is it just "wintel" holding up the source for using them under linux or whatever.

[tearinghairout]

Sadly, I think that the modem battle is largely a lost cause for Linux - at least for the foreseeable future.

I whole-heartedly agree with most of the comments here.

The internet is a killer app, and people won't go without. Many parts of the world still rely on dial up. Support for winmodems under Linux - whilst possible - takes a lot of effort and is really not appropriate for the average home user. It would be great for user adoption if we could get modems to "just work" under Linux.

However, support for winmodems is so bad under Linux for reasons that are largely beyond our control.
The main reason is vendors simply will not release enough information about their modems to enable reliable open drivers to be created. Those that do make an attempt to cater for Linux usually create a binary module that can be loaded up, but then there are issues of different versions of the kernel and different libraries for all the different distributions of Linux. They tend to end up supporting one and only one particular version of one particular distribution of Linux.

In addition, the licencing they use for these binaries tends to prohibit them being distributed by Linux "vendors", and so the end-users have to download them from the manufacturers web sites and install the drivers themselves. As has already been pointed out, this alone is enough to make Linux a non-starter for many people.

Linux is currently stuck in this Catch-22 situation whereby the modem manufacturers are not showing any real desire to provide a workable solution for Linux because the market share for Linux is so small, and the market share for Linux will remain small (at least in the home user arena) until support for hardware out of the box is vastly improved, which of course requires open drivers from the manufacturers.

This is true not just for modems, but for a number of different areas. Things like games software, USB cameras, 3D graphics cards etc. all fall into the same category.

It is for these reasons that I have largely given up trying to promote the adoption of Linux to home users. I am more than willing to try to help people who post questions on forums like this, but I no longer go wandering around to family and friends handing out Knoppix CD's and suggesting they give it a try.

I believe that the way to win the war is to give up on the home user front for the time being and concentrate on the corporate users. Most corporations provide computers for their employees to use that do not need to have games, esoteric peripherals like cameras and certainly no need for dial up because they are connected to the corporate network.
This is an area in which Linux can carve itself some marketshare because it is quite capable of doing most of the things required in this role. In addition, it is the IT department - not the users - who decide what goes on the desktop, and in many cases the IT admins. are just as sick of MS and Windows as are many of us here.

If Linux can gain some sort of respectable market share in the government or in business, then of course that will be the incentive for the manufacturers to start doing whatever it takes to start properly supporting Linux, and this will then speed up the adoption of Linux for the home users as well.

I don't think I am alone in thinking this way either. Consider Red Hat. They used to be the leading supplier of boxed distributions for the home users, but now they don't even have a home user boxed set anymore. They have given up on this market to instead concentrate on going after the businesses and corporations, and given their quite healthy recent financial results, the strategy seems to be working.
SuSE too (now Novell of course) seem to be following a similar course by jacking up their prices and concentrating on including "Enterprise" features. They have made headlines fairly recently for beating Microsoft in that contract with the council of the city of Munich.

I don't want to sound negative or defeatist, but I don't believe that Linux will ever break into the home user market using the approach that has been made up till now, and that we should concentrate our efforts into promoting it at the government and business level. That, for the time being, means forgetting about modems, and concentrating more on officy type things like word processors etc.

My AUD$0.02

[h00man]

I've been thinking...

A boot floppy / boot CD options that will:

- perhaps allow the modem to work and online to report it's chipset, drivers, kernel versions, etc that worked or not

- if the modem doesn't work, just run scanmodem to check what modem users have http://http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/

- easily log and upload the modem data somewhere, even if it's via windows.

- translate scanmodem to other languages, as it gives a lot of information

- list email addresses of manufacturers, organizations, etc where users should write to ask or lobby for modem drivers and source code for their modems

Try downloading Kurumin linux, it's got scanmodem and scripts to activate HSF, HCF, Conexant, etc drivers that are already compiled for it's kernel, etc. I've got several modems working with it, including many that winXP wouldn't detect.