[ale] Share my frustration: what do you do for fax/data modems?

[Christopher Fowler]

CDW carries modems too.

On Fri, 2006-06-16 at 16:24 -0400, James P. Kinney III wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-06-16 at 16:02 -0400, Christopher Fowler wrote:
> > Okay....
> > 
> > I guess I need to explain some things here.  Remember that I deal with
> > modems daily.  In fact a few today.
> > 
> > 1.  If it is too good to be true then it is not true.
> > 2.  Hardware modems cost more than $10
> > 3.  Repeat #2 10 times remembering #1.
> > 
> > Call Ginstar and tell them you need a hardware modem.  They don't keep
> > many around but they will sell you one.  I pay around $35-$50 ea.  
> > I've never had problems getting hardware modems to work in Linux.
> 
> I have been looking for a reliable source for internal modems with voice
> support. I'll give Ginstar a try. I found one on-line several years ago
> (~$45 and it claims to be a USRobotics) but I can't relocate the source.
> Voice modems are great for making nice answering machine with VOCP.
> > 
> > Multi-Tech sells a USB external powered by USB.  No wall wart.  $125.
> > Works great in 2.6 not so in 2.4.  Uses acm driver.  Driver has minimal
> > tty support in 2.4 does not even support character processing.  So stty
> > says one thing the truth is another.  I had to modify the driver to get
> > it to support CRNL type features.  I hacked it in an get an occasional
> > panic.
> > 
> > The USB modem is the size of a standard ZDX.  They have one that is even
> > smaller about the size of a USB ethernet dongle.  Very nice!
> > 
> > Since I live in a world of serial I respect UARTs. In the good ole days
> > UARTs were kings.  A true modem needs _no_ driver.  Any modem that
> > requires one is not a true modem.  Just a DSP masking as one and will
> > give you problems.  Reliable communications requires reliable hardware
> > and to me that means a hardware modem is the only answer.
> > 
> > 
> > On Fri, 2006-06-16 at 15:50 -0400, Vernard Martin wrote:
> > > Just like Byron, I am doing modem stuff at the moment.
> > > 
> > > The situation: I have a Dell Itanium machine running RedHat Enterprise 
> > > Linux. It has no USB ports. I have a USB-to-Serial adapater plugged in 
> > > and its working fine. I'm using an external  USRobotics modem to do SMS 
> > > messages with the Nagios monitoring system.
> > > 
> > > Since the machine is a rackmount, I'd like to eliminate the external 
> > > modem and its power supply brick and replace it with an internal modem.  
> > > But the problem of course if finding an internal PCI modem that is 
> > > supported under linux as well. I don't mind spending money on this as 
> > > its a enterprise critical system.
> > > 
> > > My current attempts at finding a solution was to purchase a $10 modem at 
> > > Frys that claimed it had linux support. Unfortunately its mostly linux 
> > > 2.4 kernel support. The 2.6 support doesn't complain cleanly and I'm 
> > > trying to muddle through that.
> > > 
> > > Where can I buy a modem that will definitely work with linux?
> > > 
> > > Vernard
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > > Ale at ale.org
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> > 
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