Linmodem-HOWTO : Specific Chipsets and Their Drivers

5. Specific Chipsets and Their Drivers

5.1 Lucent LT

Overview

This modem enjoys the most support under Linux, in that there exist three different driver packages.

There exists a manufacturer-unsupported, half-binary/half-open-sourced kernel module, originally designed for Red Hat 6.2's 2.2.14-5 kernel; This is driver version 5.78, and is the driver you are most likely to have success using.
There exists a manufacturer-unsupported, binary-only kernel module, compiled under Red Hat 6.0's 2.2.12-20 kernel. This is driver version 5.68.
Some open source tools for use with Lucent modems are available at http://www.close.u-net.com/ltmodem.html. Pavel Machek writes that "It is not too useful, however: it is a hardware driver, and without a v.34 protocol stack, you can't connect to your ISP. It is enough to turn your Lucent winmodem into an answering machine, however."

It should be noted that the binary-only driver module (from "linux568.zip") contains code from the GPL'ed Linux serial.c driver, so, since the source code for the modem driver is not available, trafficking in this driver is apparently in violation of the GPL. Distributing the partially open source driver ("i56lvp578.zip") may or may not be technically legal, since the GPL'ed code, though not yet linked with the closed-source code, is certainly intended to be so. See this Kernel Traffic issue and a Linux-Kernel mailing list archive for the week including Dec. 3rd, 2000, for more details.

Manufacturer's driver version 5.78 - Installation

The source portion of the installation will depend on which version kernel with which you will be using the module. The original code is designed for use with Red Hat 6.2's kernel 2.2.14-5.0.

Obtain the package for your kernel from http://walbran.org/sean/linux/stodolsk/ (For 2.4 kernels, apply the necessary patches as described there.)
Unpack the package.
Make the ltmodem.o module by typing make
Change to the root user with su (enter root password when prompted)
Install the module using ./ltinst2 (recommended) or ./ltinst (original)

Your modem should now be accessible as the device /dev/modem or /dev/ttyLT0 (recommended), or /dev/ttyS14 (for backwards compatibility).

Manufacturer's driver version 5.68 - Installation

This driver is superseded by version 5.78; however, it may still be of some use in special cases.

Obtain the package for your kernel:
1. 2.2.12 to 2.2.15 http://linmodems.org/linux568.zip
2. 2.2.15 and above : same URL, but "tty.h" patch is required; see "Tips and Tricks...", above.
unzip linux568.zip
su (enter root password when prompted)
./ltinst (a 'file not found' error will be issued due to a flaw in the installation script; ignore this error.)

Your modem should now be accessible as the device /dev/modem or /dev/ttyS14.

Open Source Tools - Installation

See the documentation with the source for instructions.

5.2 ESS

Overview

Binary-only drivers for ES56T-PI (PCI) and ES56V-I (ISA), compiled under RedHat 6.0's kernel 2.2.12-20, are available. The driver has been used via forced insertion up through kernel 2.2.15, and up through 2.2.17 using the "tty.h" patch described in the "Tips and Tricks..." section, above.

Installation

Obtain the package for your modem:
- ISA: ftp://ftp.esstech.com/pub/modem/isa/unsupported/56v-i/linux/kernel61/linux111.zip or
- PCI: ftp://ftp.esstech.com/pub/modem/pci/unsupported/56t-pi/linux/Kernel61/111.zip.
For kernel 2.2.15 and later, apply tty.h patch (See "Tips And Tricks...," above); recompile kernel and modules.
Unpack the package with: unzip package_name
Change to the root user: su (enter root password when prompted)
Create the device file: mknod /dev/esscom c 127 1
Make convenience device: ln -s /dev/esscom /dev/modem
Make convenience device: ln -s /dev/esscom /dev/ttyS15
Set device ownership: chgrp uucp /dev/esscom
Set device permissions: chmod 666 /dev/esscom
Masquerade module version (See "Tips And Tricks...," above): ./fixscript essmodem.o essmodem.fix.o
Install module file: cp essmodem.fix.o /lib/modules/`uname -r`/misc/essmodem.o
Insert module in kernel: insmod -f essmodem
(Optional) Provide for automatic module loading: add a line "alias char-major-127 essmodem" to the file /etc/modules.conf or /etc/conf.modules

5.3 PCTel

Overview

Binary drivers can be found at http://www.kcdata.com/~gromitkc/winmodem.html#drivers.

A Debian-style installation package for kernel 2.2.16 is available from Corel at ftp://ftp.corel.com/pub/linux/CorelLinux/dists/corellinux-1.2/corel/binary-i386/utils/pctel-kernel-2.2.16-driver-cdl-v1.0_1.0.deb . Debian packages (.deb) can be converted to other package formats (such as RPM or .tar.gz) using the "alien" tool ( http://www.kitenet.net/programs/alien/).

Installation

There are apparently two types of PCTel module package around.

A package (rpm or deb) which installs two module files, pctel_hsp.o and pctel_pci.o, in /lib/modules/2.2.16.
With such a package, if you are running a kernel more recent than 2.2.16, you will need to use forced insertion (insmod -f), and if you are not successful, might try the "fixscript" method used with the Lucent 5.68 and ESS modules above - but, note that this has not, to my knowledge, been tried out yet. If you are running a kernel older than 2.2.16, you should consider upgrading your kernel, or else try the fixscripting as well (this is also not guaranteed to work). Please send me a report if you get these to work.
A package which, when unpacked, gives a set of libraries (hsp.a, etc...) and a small C source file (ptmodule.c), which should be in directories like lib/ and src/module/. If there are no directories, create them and arrange the files with:
```
mkdir lib
mkdir src
mkdir src/module
mv *.a lib/
mv Makefile *.c src/module
```
Now go to the directory src/module and type make. This should generate the module file pctel.o, which will appear back up in the directory lib. (The driver module is not the object file ptmodule.o in src/module!)
The apparent version of the module generated in this way will match your current kernel version.

With the modules in hand, proceed to install as follows:

Change to the root user: su (enter root password when prompted)
Create the device file: mknod /dev/pctel c 62 79
Make convenience device: ln -s /dev/pctel /dev/modem
Make convenience device: ln -s /dev/pctel /dev/ttyS15
Set device ownership: chgrp uucp /dev/pctel
Set device permissions: chmod 666 /dev/pctel
Install module file (only for package type 2, above): cp pctel.o /lib/modules/`uname -r`/misc/
Insert module(s) in kernel with insmod -f ham

5.4 Conexant/Rockwell HSF

There exists a driver at http://www.olitec.com/pci56kv2.html which was recently (Sept. 2000) "discovered" by Denis Havlik (denis(at)mandrakesoft.com). The page is in French, but the installation commands are given on the page in boldface red text. Essentially, download the package, unpack it with tar -zxvf, and run the installation script ins_all.

It will, however, probably not work for you - very few people have been successful with this one.

Some things already known about the driver include:

It was compiled against the RedHat 6.2 kernel 2.2.14-5.0; therefore, use with post- 2.2.15 kernels will require at least the tty.h patch (see "Tips And Tricks...," above).
It appears to be tuned for the French telephone system. Mark Allen posted an .inf file for some other phone systems to the linmodems mailing list here; others have tried modifying the lin_hsf.inf file or copying (fully or partially) the .inf file from their Windows installation. Fully successful use of the modem has been reported from France and Australia, with degrees of success reported from a few other countries (Spain, ...?).
You might need to make the modem device file with major number 253 instead of the 254 used by default.
Modem initialization strings may be important: the French site recommends AT&FW2; John Torriero in Australia had success with a very minor change to the .inf file and some extended initialization strings, as described here .

In short, this driver has not yet been fully explored; check out the mailing list archives at http://linmodems.org, in particular this thread, for further discussion and information. If you successfully get such a modem working, I would be very much interested to know how you did it.

5.5 Intel (formerly Ambient Technology, formerly Cirrus Logic)

Mikhail Moreyra has written a GPL'ed driver for the CL-MD5620DT chipset which can do up to 33.6 kbps; however, this is alpha software and should be treated with due care. The driver can be obtained at http://linmodems.org/CLModem-0.3.0.tar.gz. Recently, Gabriel Gambetta (ggambett(at)internet.com.uy) issued a patched version of the driver to allow standard AT modem commands; you can get this version at Rob Clark's site here.

A binary-only, beta driver for the Intel Creatix V.90 HaM compiled under kernel 2.2.16 was released to the Linmodems.org mailing list in late November, 2000, and is mirrored at http://walbran.org/sean/linux/stodolsk/Ham.zip. To install:

Change to the root user: su (enter root password when prompted)
Create the device file: mknod /dev/ham c 240 1
Make convenience device: ln -s /dev/ham /dev/modem
Make convenience device: ln -s /dev/ham /dev/ttyS15
Set device ownership: chgrp uucp /dev/ham
Set device permissions: chmod 666 /dev/ham
Install module file: cp ham.o /lib/modules/`uname -r`/misc/
Insert module in kernel with insmod -fham

5.6 3Com Mini-PCI

A request for comments was posted by a 3Com official about the possible demand for a binary-only driver for their miniPCI combination NIC/winmodem here on the Linodems.org mailing list; please respond to the address given, linmodem@new-n-used.com, and not to the mailing list. Though to my knowledge no driver has yet been released, Werner Heuser's miniPCI page has more information and links.

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