Since I had quite a hard time to figure out and actually just wanted to scan a winxp system connected to the net via ISDN and AVM Fritz!PCI V1.0/V2.0 with Knoppix 5.0.1 - it is working.

As I only used ISDN under Windows I am not sure if I everything explain right, but like I used to "install driver, configure ISP and dial in" I realized under Knoppix it wouldn't be that easy. I used the german Knoppix 5.0.1 CD (therefore english menu translations maybe inaccurate). PC was a Medion Pentium 4 system with 1 GB or so RAM and Nvidia gfx + the ISDN card.

  • boot Knoppix and successful run X
  • menu KNOPPIX -> Network / Internet -> ISDN-card configure (Knoppix)
  • select "ISDN -Settings View/Edit" + OK
  • select "Hardware" + OK, select "AVM Fritz! PCI V1.0/V2.0" + OK, leave the modprobe line untouched + OK, wait for "initialising" (whatever it is showing in %, I never saw 100% though it worked)
  • fill in the other fields (self-explaining)
  • at last select "Setup save/activate" + OK
  • if you get a message from the ISDN-Tool like "The ISDN subsystem isn't initialized yet ..." then go through the step hardware again, otherwise it should say something like "The ISDN subsystem is initialized. ..."
  • you get back to the previous menu, select "Connect" + OK
  • in the line "Online status" in brackets should be shown something like "ippp0" or similar, if "offline, no driver loaded" then something is wrong here already
  • select "ISDN-Subsystem run/start" + OK and wait some seconds
  • select "Show online status" + OK, it opens Imon in a terminal window
  • if you see 2 channels (offline) everything is ok - if you see "No channels found!" then hardware config maybe wrong
  • open another terminal session and type "sudo /etc/init.d/isdnutils start" + ENTER, should only print "Starting ISDN services ..." (this step is actually already done but I make it to go safe), if you see error messages like "Can't open ..." then something again is wrong
  • to try dialing your isp type "isdnctrl dial ippp0", one channel in the Imon window should get online / busy
  • if it gets only for a second a connection then telephone number or isp data could be wrong, need to edit
  • try to go online with Firefox, you should get an internet connection
  • or download f-prot and let do its job

My experience is that if the ISDN subsystem is properly initalized the applications "itself" dial in, I used "isdnctrl dial ippp0" just for checking the connection. If there is more bandwith needed even the 2nd channel gets automatically opened (and closed), really nice. Since I am new to Linux/Knoppix this behaviour is quite new to me: I do not see any graphical feedback if the ISDN is working properly "under the hood".

Sven