[ Thanks to Jason
Greenwood for these links. ]
From Part 2:
“If you installed Linux after last month’s column you’ve
probably already hit the major downer; no modem. The problem is
that many of today’s modems are partly software based and rely on
drivers in the Windows operating system to make them work. Up until
only a few years ago getting a so-called winmodem to work as a
linmodem was a battle that involved wading through acres of
technical documentation and experimenting with arcane Linux
commands. These days however manufacturers are recognising that
Linux users are starting to form a good part of their market and
it’s actually in their interest to release drivers–or at least
reveal the workings of their chipsets so that the user community
can create their own.“From a user perspective there’s been a major advance in
diagnostic tools to help winmodem users find a working driver.
Certainly one of the most prominent has to be scanModem. Its goal
is to identify chipsets so that users ‘can be directed to sources
of potentially supporting software.’ But does it perform? I put it
to the test…”