On Mon, 26 Aug 2002, Darragh wrote: > I've made a few advances today. I downloaded two drivers > for the modem one was I686 and the other for Athlon. The > one for I686 detected the modem but got no further but the > one for the Athlon processor didn't find it at all. Well, no one is likely to be able to help with info this vague. You did not post the URL where you got it, the package name, whether it was source or binary, whether you can compile source packages (success would be far more probable with source, even though it would be only partial). And specifics about your machine would be necessary, and a reminder about your exact modem model, brand, etc -- ALL the particulars. And the output of "lspci -v", lsdev, "cat /proc/interrupts", and also similarly the one for the ports, and any other relevant info. > The reason that this is so strange is this computer is > running an Athlon processor but yet Linux sees it as an > I686. I was briefly thinking that if Linux correctly > detected the processor, would the modem driver that runs > with the athlon processor work? If so, how can I make the > kernel think that its an Athlon. Not strange at all: it's the kernel that matters most here: the driver must be compiled for that kernel version and architecture, since it is presumably a kernel module. You clearly don't understand enough about linux yet to wend your way through such a complicated problem as getting the proper driver and getting it working, which is pretty normal, and to be expected. And it would be very difficult to guide you through it on a list for which it is really off topic, and without enough info. Look at the Linmodem HOWTO and web sites that other posters told you about, and see if there is a mailing list you can join where you can get help from other masochists <grin> who insist on running what many of us regard as junk modems (even if you get them "working" -- in a fashion). The bottom line here is that getting a winmodem, linmodem, or other software based modem (or win-printers, or anything else of that type) to work is a task for advanced users only, and a questionable, experimental enterprise even at that: such drivers are likely to be unstable and of low quality, and may even make your whole system unstable. It's not likely that any such drivers are at a gamma or production release level or similar quality, or ever will be; certainly, the ones at the web site I gave you clearly state that they are no where near such quality, and take they pains to warn you about that; they're not kidding or just only making a legal disclaimer. They include unsupported propriety binary code, too: my advice is never to accept hardware that requires proprietary driver code under linux -- that's generally a warning sign of poor quality, and future support problems (are you prepared to throw out such hardware when you get a kernel upgrade, and you cannot recompile the code, because you don't have source)? I am, therefore, opposed to supporting them for new users, lest they give Linux a bad name (you certainly won't get any help from me). Such hardware can be obsoleted when there is a windoze upgrade, too, for similar reasons: M$ says that one if the biggest reasons for the well known Windoze OS instability is poorly written 3rd party drivers (and for once, their claims are credible). Your best bet is to junk it, and get an external modem (external modems cannot be implemented as winmodems, or require special drivers). An external modem should be easy to set up -- indeed, it would possibly be automatically detected and configured for you during bootup, by the kudzu utility. So now I have helped you, after all, more than if I had guided you through installing a buggy driver for inferior hardware. Good luck and best wishes, LCR -- L. C. Robinson reply to no_spam+munged_lcr@onewest.net.invalid People buy MicroShaft for compatibility, but get incompatibility and instability instead. This is award winning "innovation". Find out how MS holds your data hostage with "The *Lens*"; see "CyberSnare" at http://www.netaction.org/msoft/cybersnare.html