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I suppose theres no point in having the Worlds best Multiuser Operating System, and not connecting it to the Net, or even to BBS's. This is probably the best use most people get out of their Linux Boxes (The term Linux box is a phrase used to represent your computer). It's fairly easy, this part of the guide focuses on setting up a non PnP modem for Linux, based on the assumption that it is already working in Windows 95/98. If you have a PnP Modem, you will need to refer to the guide for Plug and Play how-to on the main page. If this is a new modem, that has never been installed before, and Linux will be the only OS using it, I'll cover the Hardware settings too.

This paragraph is for a Modem that has never been used before, if you have sucessfully gotten your modem to work in Windows 95/98, open the Device Manager, contained in the System Control Panel, Click on the Modem, and note the COM port. You will need this later. Remove the modem from its packaging and study the manual. Find out if the Modem can be set using the jumpers on the board. If it can, try to set it to COM2, the reason for this, is that your mouse normally resides on COM1, but COM3 also uses the same IRQ, which could cause a potential conflict with your mouse, should you set up your modem on Com3! The Manual will give a picture of the board, along with the locations of various jumpers. Refer to the table contained in the manual that lists all the combinations of IRQ and I/O settings. The Manual should give the default I/O settings and IRQ settings for each COM port, if not, I'll be listing them at the end of this document. Connect the modem into an ISA or PCI socket on your motherboard, depending of course on what kind it is. Before you start the Computer, you should be confident in the Settings you have chosen, and remember, it only takes a few seconds to examine all the jumpers again, double checking is vital. Boot into Linux, and we'll start configuring the machine.

In Xwindows, open an XTerm, and type in modemtool. This program sets up what is called a Symbolic Link. That in simple terms means that when a program needs to access the modem, it will access the device /dev/modem, but this is only a pointer to the correct COM port. COM2 would be /dev/ttyS1. You can think of symbolic links like shortcuts in Windows 95/98. All you need to do here is click on the COM port that your modem is on, and click OK. Congratulations, you have just set up your Modem - that wasnt so Hard now was it?

Lets test the modem, and make sure its working ... from an XTerm, run minicom -c on, and wait a few seconds for the program to launch. The error messages you get are fine, they just relate to using the modem as root. When the program has sucessfully interogated the modem, you should see something along the lines of AT xxxxxx and on a separate line, OK. Lets try to dial someone, type in atdt [your_number_at_home]. This way you wont be charged for the call ;) The modem should start dialing, and then get an engaged tone. To hangup, type ath. You may have noticed that both commands started with AT, this just gets the ATtention of the modem.

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