Dialup/Wireless Modem Upgrade Packages for Puppy 4.3+

Message
Author
Shep
Posts: 878
Joined: Sat 08 Nov 2008, 07:55
Location: Australia

#151 Post by Shep »

benny7440 wrote:After I launch <Internet Connection Wizard>, Wary detects the internal modem but that's as far as I've gone with it. Apparently, it (I) needs the phone #, login UN & PWD of my ISP to go further in its configuration.
I reckon your ISP's web site would list their dial-up phone number. But you could give it any phone number to dial, just to see whether it will.
Yes, you're right, I've been doing this over the phone & was advised to use a cellular phone when I call them for configuring the acct., since they have to give me certain instructions
They probably expect you to be using windows, and they'll tell you what to click on and where.

User avatar
benny7440
Posts: 440
Joined: Mon 20 Apr 2009, 04:23

#152 Post by benny7440 »

Thanks for responding, Shep!

I tried to dial my cellular # at the same time I was listening through my other land phone (connected to the same line) for making sure the modem was inserting the required tones but never heard anything.

What I did: Today, after reading your post, I right-clicked the connection icon on the task bar & selected <Disconnect from Network>; launched the Network Connection Wizard & it showed again my modem & the port it's assign to but, after selecting <Probe> in the next screen (or <Connect>, after inserting the 'fake' Tel. #) it says that a modem is not detected.

I did left the ethernet connected at first but later tried it with it disconnected. In both cases it had the same result.

Any advise as how to proceed?

Addendum: I noticed that my memory consumption was getting very high after each trial. Now, after >1 hour later & after playing some online & computer based games, I still see "3" horizontal white lines with the lower "3" sections in red. Something unusual happened also: after every trial I was unable to close the application & had to resort to the 'kill' process (about 5 times in total).

Shep
Posts: 878
Joined: Sat 08 Nov 2008, 07:55
Location: Australia

#153 Post by Shep »

benny7440 wrote:What I did: Today, after reading your post, I right-clicked the connection icon on the task bar & selected <Disconnect from Network>; launched the Network Connection Wizard & it showed again my modem & the port it's assign to but, after selecting <Probe> in the next screen (or <Connect>, after inserting the 'fake' Tel. #) it says that a modem is not detected.
I can't help much with troubleshooting, sorry. I'm using wireless now. But even though it doesn't automatically detect your modem, isn't there a place you can type in a /dev/tty??? one at a time and try it? (In a console, you to try ls -l /dev/tty* to see what the various devices are.)

EDITED
Something I'll mention now, but you're not in need of this yet: if your phone service does not provide a dial tone (or provides something which is not recognized as a dial tone) then select the no dialtone box, otherwise it will wait futilely for a dial tone before starting to dial. Also, if wvdial finds your ISP's prompt confusing, you'll need to click for "stupid" mode.
Any advise as how to proceed?
Hope someone else can help.
Addendum: I noticed that my memory consumption was getting very high after each trial.
In Wary, the red is not memory usage. The red plot is related to how hard the processor is working, something like that. It should drop back to near zero when you close most apps. The green thing to the left of the red plot is related to your savefile size. Instantaneous RAM usage is not shown as a graphic. You can get it using 'hardinfo'.
Now, after >1 hour later & after playing some online & computer based games, I still see "3" horizontal white lines with the lower "3" sections in red. Something unusual happened also: after every trial I was unable to close the application & had to resort to the 'kill' process (about 5 times in total).
Maybe the games are not well written? Do normal utilities, media player, and the browser, behave properly when you go to close them?
Last edited by Shep on Wed 20 Jul 2011, 02:45, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
benny7440
Posts: 440
Joined: Mon 20 Apr 2009, 04:23

#154 Post by benny7440 »

Thanks Shep for responding!

At the end of my last post I'm referring to the wvdial api & not to the games.

I tried the console approach you mention but from the gui, later I went to the process gui & saw many processes that had started earlier, each referring to a different tty# dev. I'm guessing now that not selecting the stupid mode opened a process that never ended (properly, at least) & that was why the cpu was so busy.

Shep
Posts: 878
Joined: Sat 08 Nov 2008, 07:55
Location: Australia

#155 Post by Shep »

benny7440 wrote:I'm guessing now that not selecting the stupid mode opened a process that never ended
I went back and corrected my post. I should have said uncheck the "dialtone check" box to ignore dialtone. The stupid mode is for difficulty during login, but you are not up to that yet. :( You can see help for these by clicking on wvdial help in the same dialer screen where you see PROBE..

Instead of entering information in the dialer screen, I'm sure you can edit /etc/wvdial.conf

My thoughts are that even if it can't automatically detect the modem, provided you type its location into /etc/wvdial.conf it will use it.

After using dialup for a couple of years with puppy, I have moved to wireless internet, so have forgotten some of the details. But I have kept a copy of my dialup wvdial.conf because I spent a lot of time optimising the modem string for holding a stable connection.
Last edited by Shep on Wed 20 Jul 2011, 12:30, edited 2 times in total.

User avatar
benny7440
Posts: 440
Joined: Mon 20 Apr 2009, 04:23

#156 Post by benny7440 »

Thanks Shep for the clarification!

Can I do this of configuring dialup while been connected via ethernet?

I fetched for some hardware info inmediately after booting up & I'm posting it below:

>

Code: Select all

-Loaded Modules-

agrserial		: 	Agere Modem Interface driver

	Module Information
		Path			/lib/modules/2.6.32/agrmodem/11c11040/agrserial.ko
		Used Memory		7.29KiB
	Description
		Name			agrserial
		Description		Agere Modem Interface driver
		Version Magic	2.6.32 SMP mod_unload modversions 486
	Copyright
		Author			Agere System Inc (cleanup by ZsoltTech.Com
		License			GPL
		
agrmodem		: Agere Modem Controller driver

	Module Information
		Path			/lib/modules/2.6.32/agrmodem/11c11040/agrserial.ko
		Used Memory		1204.97KiB
	Description
		Name			agrmodem
		Description		Agere Modem Interface driver
		Version Magic	2.6.32 SMP mod_unload modversions 486
	Copyright
		Author			Agere System Inc
		License			GPL
	Dependencies
		usbcore
		snd-hda-codec
		snd 
[/code]

What doesn't make sense is that the system seems to recognize the existence of the modem but the api for configuration of it seems to be unable to recognize the harware. I'll try that that you say above.

tempestuous
Posts: 5464
Joined: Fri 10 Jun 2005, 05:12
Location: Australia

#157 Post by tempestuous »

benny7440 wrote:downloaded wary 5.* & it's behaving ok. It also detected 'my modem' at: port /dev/tty_SAGS3
...
After clicking the <Test> button it reported: "Sorry, the modem was not detected as ttyS_AGS3"
You have made some progress. It appears that the "agrserial" driver has automatically loaded, and has created a device node called /dev/tty_SAGS3

The failure of this device node may simply be due to bad hardware resource allocation. I suggest you boot Wary using the boot parameter "acpi=off". Open /mnt/home/boot/grub/menu.lst in Geany,
and to the end of the line starting with "kernel" add a space plus "acpi=off" (without the quotation marks).
Reboot. Try again, and you might be lucky.

User avatar
benny7440
Posts: 440
Joined: Mon 20 Apr 2009, 04:23

#158 Post by benny7440 »

Thanks tempestuous for responding!

Today I tried to bootup Wary but never got connected via ethernet as usual & tried PL511 & it also failed; so I resorted to use a live PL511 cd & got connected. After reading email & playing a few web games I rebooted to Wary but after trying every conceivable way of doing it (via dialup modem, ethernet & wireless), never got connected. It appears that something got broken & very broken.

I tried acpi=off & Wary booted up responding very jumpy, even so I continued & tried all what I've said above. No luck for me with dialup connections with linux so far.

Is there something else to try?

Edit: I almost forgot to tell you that even the audio that comes from the speakers is downgraded, so much it sounds as if the cones of the speakers were loose...

User avatar
tech_jnke2
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun 21 Mar 2010, 07:19

#159 Post by tech_jnke2 »

guys, i've been reading about your problem and if i remember right, it was either linspire or freespire that had the same problem with agere modems in their debian version . they did solve it but i just don't have a copy at hand with the drivers to upload so barry or temp can look at it and figure out what to do.

all i can say is for now , switch out the modem to something else that puppy will support for now, and maybe later the aussie wizards can fix it so those modems can work right.

also i would've suggested to use the newest version of dsl, but that is a major joke. puppy has more going for it than dsl. so i cant tell you what to use to get that quirky modem to work , sry.

User avatar
rerwin
Posts: 2017
Joined: Wed 24 Aug 2005, 22:50
Location: Maine, USA

#160 Post by rerwin »

benny7440 & all of you who have been trying to help him,
Sorry to say, I have not been monitoring this thread for a few weeks while obsessed with the new, upcoming Lucid Puppy 526 (which does not handle the Agere modem).

The key symptom, here, is that the modem is not detected by PROBE, which is what counts. Wary went through the right motions to identify the driver and tty... device name, so the right pieces are in place but they seem insufficient. Be aware that the Agere (agr...) support is quite new to puppy, so there may still be some kinks to work out.

The "variant" of the driver (11c11040) indicates it is for "HDA" modems associated with a high-definition-audio sound chipset. The device hardware ID of 8086 27d8 triggered loading of the Agere driver.

As I understand the situation, the Agere driver may or may not be needed. So, let's assume it is not really needed. The module, agrmodem, must be blacklisted, to keep it from loading. However, the BootManager will not help with this, because it does not see the agrmodem driver (a bug that needs investigation). But you can run a command to cause the blacklisting. In a console, enter:

Code: Select all

echo "blacklist agrmodem" > /etc/modprobe.d/agrmodem-blacklist.conf
Then, in pupdial, click CHOOSE and ERASE, etc., exit pupdial and reboot. I expect the modem to be detected as ttySL0. Let's hope that works.

Barry or I may need to create a smoother way to do this, or at least fix the BootManager.
Richard

tempestuous
Posts: 5464
Joined: Fri 10 Jun 2005, 05:12
Location: Australia

#161 Post by tempestuous »

Yes, I was about to suggest the same as rerwin did.
There's an overlapping range of drivers for Agere/Conexant/Lucent winmodems, and by blacklisting the "agrserial" driver, you will give Puppy a chance to auto-load another driver.
I still suspect that the correct driver will be "hsfhda".

benny7440, in the interests of diagnosis, I suggest that once you have blacklisted the agrserial module and have rebooted, you then run the "lsmod" command and take note of what winmodem driver Puppy has loaded.

User avatar
rerwin
Posts: 2017
Joined: Wed 24 Aug 2005, 22:50
Location: Maine, USA

#162 Post by rerwin »

tempestuous wrote:There's an overlapping range of drivers for Agere/Conexant/Lucent winmodems, and by blacklisting the "agrserial" driver, you will give Puppy a chance to auto-load another driver.
I still suspect that the correct driver will be "hsfhda".
Good point. I just now checked the linuxant web site for AC97 devices supported by the HSF drivers and found that 8086 27d8 is not on the list. Even if it were, I am not convinced that Barry included the linuxant ALSA patch to the snd-hda-intel driver before compiling it, so the HSF HDA modems might not be supported.

benny7440,
To help us sort out ways of determining which of the three possible drivers to use, could you collect some diagnostic data for me? If you have the choice, please use wary 5.1.2, to be sure all the latest modem fixes are there.

1. First, after booting up and getting ttyS_AGS3 detected, then attempting to use it, please run in a console the command, pmodemdiag. That produces a so-named tar.gz file in your main/root directory. Please post that file as an attachment or PM it to me. You could rename it to append "-ttyS_AGS3" to the original name (before the ".tar.gz).

2. Then, after creating the blacklist conf file, rebooting and going as far as you can toward connecting, run pmodemdiag again and change the file name to add whatever device name was detected.

I hope to find something in the message log that might help identify which driver to use. I am seeking the best way to automatically handle the driver ambiguity. That begins by knowing what happens and when. Thanks for any help you can provide to that end.
Richard

User avatar
benny7440
Posts: 440
Joined: Mon 20 Apr 2009, 04:23

#163 Post by benny7440 »

Thanks for responding, tech_jnke2! Thanks also for the DSL comparison; even though I've a stick with it nearby, never have used it in this notebook: it simply won't finish booting up. Guess it's something related to the BIOS this machine uses.

To the other guys {rewin & tempestuous}: today I booted up with PL511 & was using FF 5.0. For some unknown reason the hdd led was lit every 5-10 mins for almost 3 mins, at a time. In addition to that, even a java script was stuck every now & then, consuming a lot of cpu capacity & making FF unresponsive. I resorted to restart the JWM once & it worked a little bit better but just for about 3-4 mins. I then resorted to restart the X server & this worked fine.

Now, I don't have any other choice for dealing with the next issue: a heavy thunderstorm is approaching & need to disconnect everything to protect the equipment. I'll give your commands & tricks a chance after I get online again maybe tonight or tomorrow. Thanks again for your help!

Shep
Posts: 878
Joined: Sat 08 Nov 2008, 07:55
Location: Australia

#164 Post by Shep »

benny7440 wrote: I booted up with PL511 & was using FF 5.0. For some unknown reason the hdd led was lit every 5-10 mins for almost 3 mins, at a time. In addition to that, even a java script was stuck every now & then, consuming a lot of cpu capacity & making FF unresponsive.
If you survive the thunderstorm, try clearing your browser cache. Just in case you have a lot of big files filling it.

And if you didn't survive the storm? Well, .... R.I.P. :twisted:

tempestuous
Posts: 5464
Joined: Fri 10 Jun 2005, 05:12
Location: Australia

#165 Post by tempestuous »

rerwin wrote:I am not convinced that Barry included the linuxant ALSA patch to the snd-hda-intel driver before compiling it, so the HSF HDA modems might not be supported.
Mmm, that's interesting. I have lost touch with Linux winmodem driver development, but I see that quite a few changes have happened since Dell made the HSF driver source available for free.
I just downloaded the HSF driver source from Barry's repository -
http://bkhome.org/sources/kernel-2.6.32 ... rid.tar.gz
and the README has this:
HDA (High Definition Audio) Modems
Only under 2.6.16 or newer kernels

HDA VENDOR ID 14F12BFA
HDA VENDOR ID 14F12C06

We recommend the installation of alsa-driver-linuxant available at http://www.linuxant.com/alsa-driver before installing this driver if you have a HDA modem.
So this means the snd-hda-intel patch is recommended, but not essential??

I have the Wary 5.1.1 CD on hand, so I just booted it to see that it contains ALSA 1.0.21 (which is the same ALSA version in Lucid 5.1/5.2). So the correct patch would be "alsa-driver-1.0.23-1.patch" from
http://www.linuxant.com/alsa-driver/

I don't have the kernel source for Wary, so I can't check to see if this patch has been applied.
But just for kicks, I checked the patch against the kernel source for Lucid 5.1/5.2 and I can definitely say that this patch has not been applied there.

Could someone with the Wary kernel source check to see if this patch has been applied? (# patch --dry-run ...)
It seems to me that if Wary contains the HSF driver, the ALSA patch would be an important inclusion ...
maybe we should check with Barry?

User avatar
benny7440
Posts: 440
Joined: Mon 20 Apr 2009, 04:23

#166 Post by benny7440 »

Thanks very much to all of you for responding with useful info on this matter!

I must say that, apparently, my actions of configuring Wary 512 to use the internal modem of this notebook has had the effect of leaving me without audio & the capacity to connect via ethernet (up to yesterday) & today even Seamonkey was not responding well. In one 'wizard' there was a button for testing the audio syst. & below it was another for stoping the barks: it continued barking even after the Stop button was clicked many times. The only way I was able to connect was via wireless. After the barks, even Seamonkey stopped responding: my extreme reaction has been to delete both, the warysave & the SFS files. Let me see what's going to happen next time because now I'm again in PL511.

After I bootup Wary512 I'll try all the recommendations given in order & post the results below.

PS. To tempestuous --In your last post you mention another driver as well as a patch &, for me, it got a little too technical. I most say I didn't understand fully the info within this post; sorry.

TIW
Posts: 71
Joined: Thu 14 Apr 2011, 21:40

Dialup/Wireless 3G Modem

#167 Post by TIW »

Hi rewin.

Thank you so much for all your work to make puppy such a great Linux distribution.
I am using Lupu 525 and have just bought a 3G modem. It’s being sold in Germany and comes from “klaremobil.de

tempestuous
Posts: 5464
Joined: Fri 10 Jun 2005, 05:12
Location: Australia

#168 Post by tempestuous »

benny7440,
the technical issues I raised are for the consideration of rerwin and other developers.

All you need to do is follow rerwin's suggestions regarding "pmodemdiag".

Shep
Posts: 878
Joined: Sat 08 Nov 2008, 07:55
Location: Australia

Re: Dialup/Wireless 3G Modem

#169 Post by Shep »

[quote="TIW"]I tried to connect with “Internet by wireless GPRS modem

Shep
Posts: 878
Joined: Sat 08 Nov 2008, 07:55
Location: Australia

#170 Post by Shep »

benny7440 wrote:I must say that, apparently, my actions of configuring Wary 512 to use the internal modem of this notebook has had the effect of leaving me without audio & the capacity to connect via ethernet (up to yesterday) & today even Seamonkey was not responding well.
I think you should verify your copy of 512. Check the md5sum of the .iso you downloaded against the value given on the site you downloaded from. Also verify the md5sum of the CD after you've burnt it. No point in spending a lot of time trying to get something to work when it's corrupt! :oops: :oops:

Post Reply