Setting someone up a quick dialup machine

[GenuineAdvantage]

Would a U.S. Robotics PCI modem work just like an serial modem in linux? Detected and everything? Or would drivers still be needed? I'm getting contradictory info since no one uses these things any more. I'm wondering about this one in particular. Will it just work or what? Any thoughts?

[piratePenguin]

http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/showproduct.php?product=2043&cat=174
looks good.

[GenuineAdvantage]

It was a year ago I know but $80-100 ?? Why is the one in-store below $30? Dropped that much, or it's a cheapened softmodem. I guess I'll just get it but I hope it's not the latter...

[piratePenguin]

$80 sounds like alot for any 56k modem, I got an external one for something like e30 (and I also got the seller to download and burn mandrake 10 for me, my first gnu/linux distro ) 2 years ago, but that was second hand.

Maybe they're dropping in price because few people want them anymore? 5 years ago 56kbps was all the rage (at least here it was)

[davidnix71]

NewEgg lists this USR serial modem as true hardware, read the review at the bottom.
They are still a bit pricy and now made in China, like most everything else.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustratingReview.asp?item=N82E16825104135

Here is listed an external true hardware modem for much less. Will run on a 386 the site says.

http://www.orpheuscomputing.com/modems_networking.html

[Pathos]

such a pity I got an unneed external serial modem sitting in box next to me..

[davidnix71]

I bought a Hayes Accura years ago for $50 US, just in case. It even works on a Mac, with a usb to serial adapter, though at 33.6k, not 56k because the adapter was made for pda syncing.

Even getting isa modems to work in Linux can be a pain. I ran Red Hat 7.2 once and had to go through a box of ten isa modems just to find one that would detect and work. The usb USR serial modem that worked well with no special drivers in Windows would detect in RH but not work. I didn't have the skillz to edit the conf file to make it work and since it was a P2, it still had isa slots.

[GenuineAdvantage]

People give me weird looks when I explain that external modems won't actually speed up anything, the only difference is that they'll work and look stupid sitting out there instead of in the case. But oh well. I didn't go to the nameless store to get it but I will tomorrow. If it doesn't work, too bad. I'll just throw in windows or something. I'm not getting some crappy usb one either, and a new serial one feels like a rip off at the store price just for crappy dialup. Oh well. Hopefully one day the scum of the earth will stop stifling technology and broadband will be available everywhere through power lines. Filthy internet provider companies.

[WMD]

Even getting isa modems to work in Linux can be a pain. I ran Red Hat 7.2 once and had to go through a box of ten isa modems just to find one that would detect and work.

Hmmm...I never had anything like that happen with my Zoom 56k ISA modem.  Oh yeah, that's right - the COM port interrupts.  I had a serial mouse on COM1, and the modem would set itself to COM3.  This doesn't work.  So, I went and found the manual for the modem and changed the jumper on it to force COM4.  After doing this, the modem worked.  I'm thinking that you just went through modems until you found one that had a proper COM port setting.

[pofnlice]

I have an old (circa 98) rockwell HCF Speakerphone, fax, sound card phone modem. The soundcard is only ribboned to the modem and I can detach it and just use the modem. I gutted an old HP Pavilion and ended up with it and a whole P2 rig...now a samba server running FC4.