In a sense the ampersand disconnects the program from your terminal so it can run in the background while you do other things. The advice to type the ampersand was not useful. What you see is just the way bash works. I've been using Linux for some years, and been using it for dialup since Red Hat 4.2. I've never needed to use setserial. What I would like to see is the output of wvdialconf, but what it writes to the screen and the configuration file it creates. You can capture the screen output like this: wvdialconf /etc/wvdial.conf >wvdialreport 2>&1 Before you do that, though, check whether the modem is plugged in to power and the computer and that it is turned on. btw, you said you have "a 56K hardware modem." You did not say whether it's internal or external. My instructions above assume external. On Tuesday 20 August 2002 15:09, Darragh wrote: > Hello again, > I've tried all the suggestions with no success. It keeps telling me that a > modem cant be found and I should check the setserial configuration. I've > briefly read the man pages for set serial and as far as I can tell these > options are set at boot up. I don't yet have the knowledge to start editing > it my self. One further thing, when I type wvdialconf /etc/wvdial.conf & > create I get the same error message but no command prompt. I've waited for > up to twenty minutes with no luck. I can get the command prompt back by > pressing return but I get a message saying [1]+ EXIT 1 /etc/wvdial.conf > Does any one know what this means? -- Cheers John. Please, no off-list mail. You will fall foul of my spam treatment. Join the "Linux Support by Small Businesses" list at http://mail.computerdatasafe.com.au/mailman/listinfo/lssb