The LINUX BARRIER: Dial Up Modems

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Flash
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#21 Post by Flash »

How about this: a live CD (or more probably DVD) with the source code for several different kernels, every application, library and driver known to Linux, and a (compiled) wizard.

You boot the CD, which loads the wizard, which determines whether the CD has drivers for the hardware on the computer and asks which kernel and applications you'd like to use. Then it takes this info, compiles an optimum OS for that computer and burns it to a bootable CD or installs it to the hard drive.

It sounds doable, but not easy. Anybody up for it? :lol:

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rarsa
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#22 Post by rarsa »

You just read my mind, Flash.

This project was in my Todo list.

I'm working on a draft for the wireless wizard and that was one of the solutions I was planning to explore.

I started doing some experiments to add files to the CD. There is another thread where that was resolved using the Multisession CD/DVD. I don't know if that solution will allow to create a non multisession CD image.

Patk was going to send me the Kanotix HW detection scripts for me to study.

Too bad I don't have more time. so if someone else starts the project that would be great. I actually asked Barry for priorities and those projects were there. http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.p ... highlight=.

I am currently trying to get the project I was working on stable (dynamic menus) and start with the wireless. Of course building on what BladeHunter, BlackAddler et all have implemented. None of these projects are a one person's task (unless they are retired).

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aahhaaa
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#23 Post by aahhaaa »

rarsa- lemme say first, I fully support PUPPY, and for many reasons. Also, I hear your points and in the abstract agree with them. :)

I was astounded that Puppy set up everything on my non-standard ITX Epia. I'm not griping about this breakthru distro. Not at all.

that said... how old is Linux now?

I was trying to give a sense of the frustration that a basic function- one which determines whether you can communicate, or get needed downloads - is still so tangled in obscurity and kludging. It's easier to set up the DVD burner.

Take a look at the 'working modems' listed here in the wiki at:
http://www.goosee.com/puppy/wikka/PuppyHardware

these are the only internal ones listed that aren't PCMCIA or ISA:
Actiontec V.90 PCI AKA IBM V.90 PCI.
Actiontec 56K internal PCI Call Waiting Modem
Diamond SupraExpress 336 internal
3Com Megahertz 56K Global Modem pc card, model 3CCM156
1646T00 REA 12 99035 4903835 96 Lucent - - an older PCI modem that is very fast

so I went to eBay...
the Call-waiting 56K Actiontec is listed maybe - the listings refer to a Dell 528UU & V.90- not enough info to be sure what's what.
the 3Com is not PCI, its PCMCIA.
the Diamond 336 is not currently listed
on the last- which sounds the best-
* 7 items found for REA 12
* 48 items found for 12 Lucent
* 210 items found for 12 96
* 1 items found for 99035
12 Lucent give a bunch of telephones, nary a modem in the bunch.

now add in some of the wiki 'working modem' user comments, which I think would initially faze most anybody:
I had to clear config data in BIOS before it worked.
You only need to go through the puppy modem wizard to set it up.
Quick recap: Using the puppy modem wizard froze my system, and it could only be rescued via a hard reboot.
for getting Linmodems working with Linux (not easy)
http://www.linmodems.org/∞

I'm not saying that every driver in existence should be in PUPPY; or that all the VoIP, FAX, etc features should be supported right from the first LiveCD session.

I am saying that according to LINUX COUNTER, there are 29 million people using LINUX. http://counter.li.org/estimates.php

One would think that any modem manufacturer would cater to that number. That they don't may be due to the 'registered driver' hold that MS has on any hardware maker- & the same lockout deal was pulled on the Netscape browser.

According to PC World, in 2000 there were a quarter of a billion people still using dial-up. That's 40% of all net users.
http://pcworld.about.com/news/May022001id48467.htm

I'd guess that the majority of these people are still using their ol' steam computers, for which PUPPY is perfect. So why let the modem stump them?

It's time to fix this problem- somehow. Maybe the tradeoff isn't 60M becoming 80M, its 2000 users becoming 200,000 users... :D

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bobwal
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The LINUX BARRIER: Dial Up Modems

#24 Post by bobwal »

aahhaaa said
afterthought- if one of you guys that really knows what you are doing would put half-height & full-height PCI winmodem cards on eBay- with a working driver setup disk for Puppy- I'd buy one of each!
I'de be in that. I could get my User Group members to buy these much easier than to pay out $90.00 to $120.00 for an external dialup modem.

What you say makes a great deal of sense. I read recently - on the Firefox site I think
Microsoft has never won a war in development against anyone. But it proved to be a master of Marketing. Dont Repeat The History. Don't Downplay The Marketing.
Successful marketing relies on a product that works for Everyone. Linux must have the same support and choice of Net access that Win has.

Older users don't want to program or use spreadsheets etc. And older users are becoming a significant part of the Market

They want easy, reliable and cheap access to the Net so they can exchange pics, chat with distant friends and chase up their ancestors!

If we can't help them do this, they will stay with Win.

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#25 Post by Sage »

If you want an all singing-dancing Linux DVD with nearly every option/driver known to man on it - Hr dr prof Klaus has already provided it. But Puppy is a very different animal! DSL used Knoppix detection to provide a credit card 50M live CD, whilst BarryK's intention was to redesign a very low inventory, backwards compatible distro with appeal to neophytes. All are successful in their own ways. The problem lies in catering for the huge array of HW, vast armies of putative converts and battling the beast of Remond. Not all things in life are possible. The main issue for all Linux distros remains the yawning communications gap between the gurus and users. This is gradually being address, although many penguin professionals are unable to comprehend that regular folk are incapable of understanding their technospeak, issue console commands, remaster CD s, etc. so are totally dependent on clever guys like Barry, John and colleagues to provide the goods required. For users, stepping outside the box is not an option. Linux drivers for modems with an incomplete complement of components and designed for Windows coding is a bridge too far. Although it presents an interesting intellectual challenge for the cognoscenti, regular users should avoid wasting time and effort, possibly cash too, and buy any external serial modem, as advised above.

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#26 Post by aahhaaa »

Sage-
why does wanting the existing modem to work always turn into discussing a Out house-sink distro?
If the Linux community had real working relationships with the hardware makers, how long do you think it would take for them to write a generic* driver? a week? a day?

Whole countries have adopted Linux as their standard platform. What are they doing about the dial-up problem?

Linux doesn't compete with Windows- it mostly competes with itself.

Going back to the car analogy, in the early days there were a bunch of outfits making expensive complicated horseless carriages for the rich.
Ford made a simple sturdy vehicle for everyone else.

PUPPY has a good chance to become our Model T, the distro that works on every computer, unless some other distro solves this problem first.

* by generic, I mean a standard open source driver protocol that modem cards must include to be Linux compliant...

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#27 Post by Sage »

Unfortunately, it isn't like that. Winmodems aren't really modems at all; indeed, another name has them as 'software modems'. They just have a few extra HW components on a card that, in themselves, do not constitute a 'modem'. Each chip manufacturer will devise unique software to enable their own Winmodem chipset to access the (unpublished!!) 'doze APIs; they need these to work. ipso facto, there is no 'universal driver' for these devices. It is only by dint of clever, maybe even a little reverse, SW engineering that some folks make these abominations function under Linux, but every one is different. Indeed, there is one company in the list that specialises in intercepting Lucent Winmodem calls, with the company's approval, and diverting them to penguin-speak. But, they want real money for their troubles.
Like I keep saying - save time, save effort, save money : buy an external serial modem! I could spell that out in caps, if you like?! The little lights also help to identify any rogue incoming, as well as routine problems, if that isn't an oxymoron.

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#28 Post by rarsa »

why does wanting the existing modem to work always turn into discussing a Out house-sink distro?
Because that's the reality wheter you can accept it or not.
If the Linux community had real working relationships with the hardware makers, how long do you think it would take for them to write a generic* driver? a week? a day?
Remember that in the minds of the traditional companies, Closed = captive audience, brand recognition.

The modem 'issue' has been like that always, actually it's like that for windows. If Microsoft hasn't been able to do it, what makes you think that Linux can in the short term. As I said before Microsoft solved it by market forces. Vendors create Windows drivers so they can sell.

Your question is highly rethorical as if you were asking: Why can't people just talk their problems and mediate so we wouldn't have wars?

An excelent question. A very easy solution. A very different reality.

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#29 Post by jcoder24 »

Sage wrote: Like I keep saying - save time, save effort, save money : buy an external serial modem! I could spell that out in caps, if you like?! The little lights also help to identify any rogue incoming, as well as routine problems, if that isn't an oxymoron.
It's not as simple as saying buy an external modem. Where I'm from a winmodem is around $12-15 US, whereas an external modem is at least $75US.

Why would a user (esp. a non-technical one) want to switch to an unfamiliar OS, spend $75US and then try to figure out how to install it and get on the internet?

Unlike other newbie issues (which could prob. be solved with the help of an internet connection) most users would not want to be without internet for days while trying to get a dialup connection working.

I do think there is a need to have relatively inexpensive and reliable dialup alternatives to external modems. This is part of the reason I've invested considerable time in compiling conexant hsf and hcf drivers although I no longer use dialup.

Puppy has quite a number of features working for it that can make PCs more cheaply available, can convert more M$ users to linux, can discourage dumping older PCs,.... All of this is done while still providing a positive user experience that Mr. Gates would be envious of. Why should we not try to improve this with better modem support out-of-the-box?

~~~~~~~~

I'm hoping to create a puplet with ALL of the modem (and hopefully wireless) drivers that currently work in puppy. I would have to sacrifice some apps to keep the size around 50MB but they can added once connected to the internet. I was waiting for 1.0.6 before starting the project but it seems like i may need to start sooner.
Last edited by jcoder24 on Thu 20 Oct 2005, 21:38, edited 2 times in total.

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#30 Post by sling-shot »

[jcoder24]

Fantastic!
Now i had seen the post about your drivers but did not understand if it suited me. Today i found out that my modem is using software/built by the company called Conexant. So may it will work for me.
But you have mentioned that it may be dangerous to use it. Does it mean it will cause permanent damage to my harddisk/filesystem (windows) if there is some malfunction or just that it may destroy Puppy settings (if so that will be ok)???

The financial implications are very much true.

And whatever i have learnt about computers is on the internet. In a setup like my neighbourhood where nobody knows what Linux is i cant get any help except on the net. So connecting to net is imperative with whatever i have.

Yes. your idea about sacrificing some programmes is good. For eg. a Gnumeric or gxine can be sacrificed (or may be some of the duplicate programmes) in favour of a system that will just work first.

I would rather have a Puppy that will connect to the internet on its own and get those apps rather than reboot into Win98 each time i want to do something on the net (including this forum)
I am a nobody. Nobody is perfect. So I am perfect.
STATUS:Trying to begin life in Linux World.

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#31 Post by Flash »

sling-shot wrote:...you have mentioned that it may be dangerous to use it. Does it mean it will cause permanent damage to my harddisk/filesystem (windows) if there is some malfunction or just that it may destroy Puppy settings (if so that will be ok)???
I have two computers with Windows 2000 on them. I've booted Puppy from CD on both of them many times, even moved many files from Windows to Puppy, though never the other way, and nothing bad has happened -- Yet. :lol:

Most computers can run Puppy without a hard drive at all. I haven't seen anything in this forum that makes me think Puppy could harm your Windows installation or hard drive or other hardware even if you tell it to, but assuming you have enough RAM (I'm not certain of the minimum required but, say, 128 MB?) if you disconnect your hard drive and then boot the CD, Puppy should run just fine. I've done it myself, to test a new computer I hadn't yet installed an OS in.

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#32 Post by puppian »

Sorry to say that, but IMO telling someone "your modem won't work in Puppy, save some time and buy an external modem!" is the same as telling someone "hey Puppy won't work for you, try another distro that's more popular!" or, "hey Linux won't work for you, use Windoz!"

If one gives up so easily, why so many of us are spending much time here discussing how to improve puppy?

I believe the "buy another modem" approach is not Barry's philosophy, if it is, he would have said "buy another moniter, keyboard, mouse, etc" and we won't have the puppy that we now have, which works for so many people. There will still be a puppy, a puppy that works on Barry's computer ONLY ;)

It's true to say that users (no matter regular or not) shouldn't spend much time just to get their modem works. If their modem works out of the box, their time is saved. Time is saved NOT because they have bought a new, extra piece of hardware (and buying something will surely take time too ;)). Time is saved because the existing hardware just works.

Btw, my modem DOES have a driver for Linux, just that it doesn't work very well here :)
Last edited by puppian on Fri 21 Oct 2005, 17:11, edited 1 time in total.
[url=http://puppylinux.org]Puppylinux.org - Community home page of Puppy Linux[/url] hosted by Barry (creator of Puppy), created and maintained by the [url=http://puppylinux.org/user/readarticle.php?article_id=8]Puppy Linux Foundation[/url] since 2005

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#33 Post by jcoder24 »

jcoder24 wrote:Puppy has quite a number of features working for it that can make PCs more cheaply available, can convert more M$ users to linux, can discourage dumping older PCs,.... All of this is done while still providing a positive user experience that Mr. Gates would be envious of.
Forgot to add...
Why should we not try to improve this with better modem support out-of-the-box?
sling-shot wrote: But you have mentioned that it may be dangerous to use it.
Can you post the link that mentions it being dangerous? It was prob. so long ago that I forgot I said it.

irvm

Nearly failed

#34 Post by irvm »

OK, I downloaded and booted Puppy just now,
and I'm posting this using it.
HOWEVER:
I use a bog-standard USRobotics EXternal
56k modem on dialup, and neither Gkdial nor
WvDial will work. Xeznet just barely works,
at about 1/10 the speed that I get on this same
computer/modem when using Mandrake.
These modems have been around for ever,
problems like this shouldn't happen.

Anyone have ideas on how to boost the speed,
and/or how to get the other dialers to work?

Irv

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#35 Post by aahhaaa »

well, Jcoder, I'd say go for it! :D

I think the issue is more than saving a bit of time. The newcomer to Linux generally has a narrow path to walk for initial success- picking a distro, downloading, .iso burning, configing, etc. At each step we lose possible members of the Linux community, and create rumors of the difficulties instead of the beauties of Linux.

PUPPY solved all this brilliantly -but there's still that last step before self-teaching sets in for dial-up users who are willing to try 'something completely different'.

What I don't understand is why software modems are apparently intimidating to a group of people who can create whole OSs. It would seem to me that the less hardware, the more practical it would be. The basic COM protocols are old tech and a dial-up API for Linux -that could be used generically by all distros- should have existed for a long time. I'd go further- modem cards should meet a Linux spec, now that states & cities have opted for Linux. For Pete's sake, Linux has Windows emulators out there...

Guys, I'm not criticizing Puppy at all, but I am out there demoing it to people a lot. Faces beam and chuckles are heard as that ol '98 computer fires up the Puppy on the desktop. They like the software and can find their way around easily with almost no couching.

Then comes the dread question: "how do I pick up my email?"

Way more than half the people in my rural area are still on dial-up. If I could say "We install this $20 XYZ modem card, it's Plug&Play in Linux too", there'd be a 50+ person Puppy user group here in a month. If I could say "Click here" with reasonable confidence, it'd be more like a hundred. :)

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#36 Post by aahhaaa »

ps Hi Irv & good work- a dial-up success story! :wink:

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#37 Post by Sage »

A crippled, non-modem, Winmodem should cost ~

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#38 Post by Flash »

Sage wrote:...Winmodems are just toys.
I have to disagree. I've had them outperform hardware modems. The problem with Winmodems as you well know is the programs that make them work are almost exclusively written for Windows. I can understand why. Unlike Windows, Linux is evolving (apologies to the "intelligent design" crowd :) ) with no apparent direction and only the vaguest guiding authority, so developing softmodem drivers for Linux is probably somewhat risky from the hardware manufacturer's point of view. Too bad. Softmodems really work quite well in my experience.

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#39 Post by rarsa »

The problem with Winmodems as you well know is the programs that make them work are almost exclusively written for Windows
This thread is getting funny.

I'll give you a clue why winmodems work almost exclusively in Windows. The clue has to do with the first three leters of the winmodem names 'W', 'I', 'N'. Any more clues?

Winmodems were designed to work under windows. Making them work under linux has been a hack at best.

Recently vendors are already opening their design for Open source developers. But it's absurd to pretend that there will be the same support for linux drivers as there is for windows drivers.

Anyway, to bring something else constructive to the talk, here is an interesting link http://linmodems.org/

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#40 Post by puppian »

jcoder24 wrote:Why should we not try to improve this with better modem support out-of-the-box?
Exactly!
[url=http://puppylinux.org]Puppylinux.org - Community home page of Puppy Linux[/url] hosted by Barry (creator of Puppy), created and maintained by the [url=http://puppylinux.org/user/readarticle.php?article_id=8]Puppy Linux Foundation[/url] since 2005

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