Hello, I removed XP from my PC and decided to Install Ubuntu and everything works good exept that I'm stuck with my external modem. This is a robotics model 5686 and Ubuntu for some reason is not seeing my device. When I do wvdialconf...I get no modems installed. Can anyone help me out and tell me if there is a driver or what I'm missing...I've been trying to resolve this issue for 4 days now; im sinkin here

chen

56K modems are cheap and nearly obsolete (except for paper faxing)

Ask at the Ubuntu forum for a Linux capable 56K modem
And remove yours from your system

4days does not equal ~ $15

I was hoping to get it to work but I guess your correct, I'm speding way too much time on this. The only reason I need a modem is to fax.

Thanks

Bollocks. Serial modems are the most standard piece of equipment on the planet and they work with everything made from sth like 1970s. It's the internal "winmodems" that never work properly.

Your assumption that every device needs to be "detected" is wrong. Just set up dial-up networking/faxing and give it the serial port device your modem is connected to (/dev/ttyS0 or /dev/ttyS1 most likely)

Nodsu thanks for your help, I already tried to setup a dialup configuration using Admin>network then setting up a "number" using /dev/ttyS0 and I also tried /dev/ttyS1 and it didn't dial at all. is there a file I can vi and get this done...it's the first time I install an external modem and I'm a little bit lost.

chen

Obvious things first.. Does the modem even work? Did it work in Windows and is it connected exactly the same way as before? Is it turned on?

Then you could check if your serial port is detected at all by Ubuntu and what device node it gets. See the output of the dmesg command. It should say something about /dev/ttySX where X is a number. Might detect it as a /dev/modem device too.

Install a program called minicom. This will let you talk directly to the modem and see if it responds at all.

Nodsu is 100% correct. You don't need a driver for a serial modem, as effectively Linux deals only with the COM port and sends standard commands to the modem through that. It's ages since I've used a 56K modem of any kind but I remember buying my Hayes 56K specifically for Linux at the time, because the rubbishy winmodems wouldn't work. I think I just used ppp or a gui front end for it (kppp?) and simply set up my connection and used /dev/ttyS0.

Nosdsu thanks for the advise; I plug in the modem into a windows machine and it didn't detech it eather so I returned the Modem and got another one so I did wvconfig and it came up as ttyS0 right away no drivers needed as you mentioned before. I was able to send a fax =) .
thank you all.