Hello I'm having a lot of trouble getting an AC97 compatible AMR winmodem to work with Linux. I have an Acer Travelmate 4000 notebook, and it comes with that modem build in. It works fine in Windows. But it doesn't in Linux. I'm using suse Linux 9.1 professional. The AC97 soundcard is detected, and works fine. The modem is also detected, a driver (smartlink 2.9.6) comes with the distro, is installed, and doesn't work. I searched the net for info, and came up a step by step guide. It's in french, sorry. It basically says to get the lastest drivers on the smartlink site, and that's what I did. The driver compiled and installed fine. I load the AMR kernel module "slamr", no errors. I start the slmodemd daemon with the slamr0 device, starts fine, no errors. The modem also accepts AT commands, and responds accordingly. But as soon as I issue a ATDT command, it doesn't dial, and gives a "NO DIALTONE". Under Windows, without changing any cables, you can hear the modem dial and connect. So I find this message in some newsgroup, saying that kernel >=2.6 should use ALSA to connect to the winmodem instead of the AMR device. So I recompile the smlink driver with ALSA enabled, no problems. I modprobe snd-intel8x0m, fine. I start slmodemd with the --alsa switch and hw:1, works. I try to dial, nothing. "NO DIALTONE". I'm lost. Help !

It's possible that the driver for the modem on linux is a little more signal strength sensative than it's Windows counterpart. Try moving the box to a different phone line, if the problem goes away, it was a line issue.

You could also try an external modem.

td

Quote: Original post by iaretony
It's possible that the driver for the modem on linux is a little more signal strength sensative than it's Windows counterpart. Try moving the box to a different phone line, if the problem goes away, it was a line issue.

I don't think that this is the problem. I don't even hear a dialtone, not even the slightest noise. On Windows, even if I unplug the line and try to dial, I hear a "click", followed by some static noise. Under Linux, it's as if the modem driver didn't access the sound chip at all. I will still try a different phone line, just to be sure.

Quote:
You could also try an external modem.

The idea was to use the builtin one :) I would like to avoid carrying just another device with my notebook, especially if the hardware is already built right into the notebook itself.

Do you want to try different distro? Say a ubuntu? I couldn't get my winmodem to work in suse but I had it working in debian years ago. Ubuntu is debian based and they have a module that works with some winmodems. Give it a try.

Complete shot in the dark, since I know nothing about winmodems, but with the ALSA device... does changing the volume levels do anything?

My advice: get a PCMCIA modem that is not a winmodem.

Winmodems are a constant uphill battle in Linux, and it only gets worse from here.

Quote: Original post by JD
Do you want to try different distro? Say a ubuntu?

I'd rather not. This is a production system, and I'm dependent on it for work. I'm not out for experiments, I just want to fix that stupid modem problem. Other than that suse is fine. If there's one thing I learned from trying different distros, is that while they might fix some things, they tend to break others. And if the winmodem works in Ubuntu, then I see no reason it shouldn't work in suse. It's probably a problem with some lib or kernel module version conflict.

Quote:
Complete shot in the dark, since I know nothing about winmodems, but with the ALSA device... does changing the volume levels do anything?

Hmm, it's at maximum. I can play music and stuff through ALSA, it works. Maybe upgrading to the newest ALSA might help ? Dunno.

Quote:
My advice: get a PCMCIA modem that is not a winmodem.
Winmodems are a constant uphill battle in Linux, and it only gets worse from here.

I'm tempted to agree. This AC97 thing sucks. The whole concept of a soft modem is retarded anyway. Can you recommend a good and not too expensive PCMCIA modem that will work flawlessly in Linux (kernel 2.6.x) ?