[SLE] Speedtouch ADSL modems on SUSE 9.3

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To: suse-linux-e@suse.com
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 09:01:53 +0100

Starting a new thread, but prompted by the thread about ADSL hadware on
SuSE...

These are my experiences trying to get my old green SpeedTouch 'frog' working
with 9.3 on my UK ADSL account. Hope this might be useful for others, as it
certainly spoilt the experience of installing 9.3 for me... but once sorted
it's been fine. I've also got a silver Speedtouch 330 working on my laptop -
I use to verify customers broadband connections...

On Thursday 12 May 2005 01:23, Cristian Rodriguez wrote:
end a complaint to your ISP or your modem manufacturer. the problem
> with usb modems is not a linux problem,is in fact, a manufacturer
> problem,they don ' t provide the necesarry documentation-specs to
> code a driver for it.

The common Thomson Alcatel Speedtouch USB Adsl modems supplied with many ISPs
work very well with Linux - but you need to fiddle a little to get them to
work. You need to get the correct firmware from the Thompson site:
http://www.speedtouch.com/support.htm Just use the Linux firmware download
link!

for 9.2 I more or less followed the instructions on the Support Database
(search for speedtouch), but I found I had to modprobe pppoatm before I could
get a connection. Use Yast to set up the DSL connection using pppoatm as the
transport. The modem loading and modprobe went into my /etc/init.d/boot.local

Other resources are on: http://linux-usb.sourceforge.net/SpeedTouch/

I had some difficulties getting the modem working in SUSE 9.3. I've reported
to both the installation support and (at their suggestion) duplicated to Suse
feedback.... that was a couple of weeks ago now. At the very least they
should update their notes on the sdb.

In summary for 9.3 to get a SpeedTouch modem working:

1. Get the correct firmware and split it.
2. Copy speedtch-1.bin speedtch-2.bin to /lib/firmware : kernel loads firmware
automatically when modem is plugged in. Which is nice.
3. Mend Suse's packaging of ppp by copying a binary of pppoatm.so pppd plugin
from another distro. Make sure the ppp version numbers match.
4. Set up DSL properties using Yast. For the UK, PPP Mode is PPP over ATM, and
vpi/vci should be 0.38.

More detailed notes:

1. For 9.3 (or kernel 2.6.10+) firmware loading has changed and is automated
by the kernel. Follow the instructions at:

http://linux-usb.sourceforge.net/SpeedTouch/firmware/firmware.html

(I couldn't get their ./configure and make script to work, but manually
compiled the firmware program - using gcc on the command line - ran it in the
build directory and then copied the split firmware files to /lib/firmware )

2. When the modem is plugged in the firmware is automagically loaded - you can
verify by looking at /var/log/messages. Which is more elegant than messing
with speedmgmt or modem_run

3. Then I had a problem that had my head banging against the keyboard in
frustration. No matter what settings I had in Yast, kinternet/ppp would not
connect. I kept getting an error 2 or something. It turns out that SUSE
haven't included the pppoatm.so plugin for pppd - that lives
in /usr/lib/pppd/2.4.3/ so the default ppp won't connect using ATM - which is
needed in the UK at least.

Previous versions of Suse's ppp all include this plugin. Back to Google - and
found a Mandrake Cooker rpm with a matching ppp version number:
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/MandrakeCooker/cooker/i586/media/main/ppp-pppoatm-2.4.3-5mdk.i586.rpm
Extract the pppoatm.so file from this rpm and copy it to /usr/lib/pppd/2.4.3/
and ppp connects fine. I used rpm2cpio and cpio to get it out.

Anyway, hope this is useful! And, yes, I was sorely tempted to go out and buy
an ADSL modem/router. But the Speedtouch has been working solidly for 4 years
for me now, and is fine for my needs.

Jason

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• Previous message: John Andersen: "Re: [SLE] SuSE supported aDSL devices"
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