Well, after a little bit of email correspondence between me and Marvin Stodolsky (developer of the martin dev package for winmodems, the continuation of the linmodem project at linmodem.org), I was able to get wvdial to communicate with my modem, and at the same time I gained a huge incite to the workings of Unix/Linux in the realm of COM. I've read somewhere that with unix/linux "everything is a file", wich as being a programmer I knew that sockets in C++ are actually file descriptors, unlike with windows sockets, which are unsigned longs.. anyways. I would like to thank Marvin for his wonderful work, and huge contribution to the world of Linux! And after a bit of fiddling, I was able to script up the wvdial.conf file that I needed to get my modem to authenticate me with my isp! Heres what it all boils down to with Mandriva 2007.1 for anyone thats having trouble with the martian packages:
1. Uncompress the package file that you need for your modem(I did this at / )
2. run #make all
3. run #make install
**excerpted from email that Marvin Stodolsky sent me**
Do:
> > # SITE=/lib/modules/2.6.17-13mdv/extra
> > # mkdir $SITE
> > FInd the misplaced driver with:
> > # find /lib/modules -name martian_dev.ko
> > If thus found
> > DRV=`find /lib/modules -name martian_dev.ko`
> > Check with
> > echo $DRV
> > should again display martian_dev.ko
> >
> > Then copy over
> > # cp $DRV $SITE/
> > Check with
> > # ls $SITE
> > should show martian_dev.ko there
> >
> > If so, inform the System
> > # depmod -a
> >
> > Then as previously instructed:
> > # modprobe martian_drv
> > # martian_modem
Marvin
the #martian_modem starts the application layer that creates ttySM0 that will be used by wvdial to communicate with the modem
So.. now to tell wvdial what to do.. for those of you that haven't read anything about wvdial, it's a pretty smart 'lil dude. It found my modem on it's own. But alas, it dident know what to do with it. So, we need to create or modify a config file for it.
This is actually a lot easier done than you'd think =-)
If ya read the man page on wvdial.conf .. you'll understand what im saying.
Well, needless to say, I'm pretty darn happy with Mandriva 2007.1 spring.
It detected every bit of hardware I have on this thing, and even got the device information on every piece of hardware I have. It did so even on things it didn't have an inkling of what a driver for it would be. And pretty much the only things I DON'T have drivers for are my printer and my line6 toneport. Lexmark does make a Linux development kit, however a driver for my particular lexmark printer isent in sight just yet. The toneport.... I highly doubt there'll ever be any driver for, as I'm pretty sure line6 won't ever release the hardware info so anyone could code a driver for it. And to end this thread, at least for me and my dive into linux, I would like to give a huge huge thumbs up to the ENTIRE Linux community, who is so readily there to assist those trying to explore this awesome operating system, regardless of their skill level. Collectively the Linux community represent a very large force in the IT world, one which M$ will never be able to kill, No matter how nasty a website they put up about *NIX OS's. Point your browser to
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserv...e/default.mspx to take a gander at the hate propaganda. Have a paper bag handy, you'll wanna puke, I know I did.