ADSL modem advice

[John Doe]

...if you're not in the USA...

how neat, had never even heard of it.

they don't have US on that first page but I did notice it further in:

http://freecycle.org/display.php?region=US%20Northeast

the other regions are in the nav at the top.

there are 2007 members in my county already.

[ecomoney]

Ive had a bit of experience with these "miserable" free modems, they say they are linux compatible but, from what Ive heard, they will only allow distribution via their own website, making it very difficult to package drivers for each distribution. I wrote to tiscali last week about a client with one, as a company with this "lets empower people through the internet" philosophy should allow people to use open source as part of that empowerment.

Unfornutetly, Ive not found a solution to this problem yet, what I usually get people to do is to fork out £30 for an adsl router modem (many want wireless anyway nowadays). If they are out of their 12 month contract then I get them to switch to using NTL/Virgin Broadband who do supply a dual ethernet/usb modem. Although you have to register the connection manually through firefox it is done fairly simply (they state on the technical support lines that they do not support Linux, even when they do!!!) and doesnt require the cd.

Would love to know if anyone does get these drivers working as it would solve a lot of problems for me too.

[Sage]

Not worth pursuing, eco. I asked Tiscali if their system was Linux-compliant. They gave me an emphatic 'No!', but they lied. These cheaper ISPs either don't have competent technical staff or they are being subsidised by the evil one. Probably both! You will find that all the single port ADSL network modems (Ebuyer, AUTdirect?) costing around £20incl VAT work just fine with Tiscali. You don't need the more expensive wireless-router variety - a wired hub is cheaper and more secure; furthermore, it requires no additional drivers or settings.
Notwithstanding, I seem to remember a posting within these pages that describes all the settings and procedures to get these USB devices running, albeit including some modifications to the driver files.
The advantage of Tiscali is that you get a Static IP (Americans, we are told, pay a premium for this!). The implication is that, in principle anything will work (except these Liveboxes that I am trying to give away!)