[CentOS] finding the right serial port, enabling & configuring it [was: Re: fax software]

[Lamar Owen]

On Tuesday, March 29, 2011 11:56:17 am Robert Heller wrote:
> At Tue, 29 Mar 2011 11:35:49 -0400 CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> wrote:

> > Internal... on a laptop... so a winmodem.  :(

> > > Almost all *internal* modems (esp. on laptops) are Winmodems and are
> > > thus pretty close to useless under Linux. 

> > Yeah, I think you're right about the Winmodem. 

> The old PCMCIA modem card might not be a fax modem.  

There were a number of PnP PCMCIA winmodems, too.

There are drivers for some winmodems for Linux for some really popular ones.  The hard part with a laptop is determining what kind of modem it is, since they all hang off the AC'97 interfaces like a sound card would.  You could have a Lucent, a Motorola, or even a 3Com chipset there.

In my case, my laptop is a Dell Precision M65; Dell Precision workstations, including the mobile ones, are fully supported (and have been for a long time) under RHEL, and thus under CentOS.  This includes 'linmodem' drivers for the Conexant chipset used in my M65; you can get that from Dell at:
http://linux.dell.com/files/ubuntu/hardy/modem-drivers/hsf/
While the directory is under the 'Ubuntu' section there is an RPM there you can try, if you have a Dell with a Conexant HSF winmodem, that is. 

You can also get commercially supported HSF modem drivers from Linuxant. See http://www.linuxant.com/drivers/modemident.php

A few years back I actually was successful in using a Conexant modem under a version of Fedora (I think it was FC5 or FC6); but I've not used dialup in a long time, so I never kept that updated.

For more information in the subject of using winmodems on Linux, check linmodems.org