Re: Do USB DSL Modems work in SuSE 9?

From: Charles (wishpot_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 03/07/04 

Date: 7 Mar 2004 01:13:00 -0800

> > Hi,
> >
> > I just got a Sagem DSL USB Modem F@ST 840 (it works ok in Windows).
> > I got the drivers from Sagem web-site (the ones on CD didn't work) and
> > it installed perfectly in SuSE9.
> >
> > But I cannot get a damn connection outside (provider is Tiscali.de,
> > who don't give Linux support) - I keep seeing the message in the log:
> > "LCP: timeout sending Config-Requests"
> >
> > Has anyone managed to get such a beast working in SuSE 9, that can
> > point me in the right direction? Where do I start looking for the
> > problem? (bad drivers? bad modem config? bad dial-up config?)
>
> Can`t give you the answer but someone posted a few weeks ago that they had got
> a Sagem USB modem working and did give instructions on how, doing a search on
> google groups, might turn up the post, just tried though and I can`t find it,
> but I might not be using the right words :)

Hi,

I got closer (I think), but still failing - the problem now *could* be
the DSP code? or it could be the mode that the modem runs in (PPPoA or
PPPoE) - is this specific to an ISP or a country (I use Tiscali.de)?
or does it depend also on what driver (PPPoA for Sagem?, emulates
PPPoE for Eagle?)? Or it is probably something completely different!
Many hours already spent reasearching and testing already (see 'easy'
below!), many more probably to come.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Charles
-------

This is what I've done to overcome some hurdles and what I -think- is
happening....

Firstly, it is natural that you will try the drivers from the
manufacturer first. So people try the Sagem drivers....though the ones
on the CD don't work (the ones on their web-site do).
This means that when you do ifconfig -a then you see the ADIModem
listed; this makes you believe that all is ok and the state is listed
as 'Modem operational'.
But...so far I've yet to read anything that suggests anyone has
actually got the Sagem drivers and scripts working.

So, researching the newsgroups you find out about the Eagle drivers
and try those.
But they do not compile on SuSE 9 and all the help
documentation/forums are in French - very inconvenient of them! :-)
RPM's do exist, but for SuSE 8.x. They install but they still don't
work.
I managed to find one posting which said how to get the Eagle drivers
to build..in a nutshell comment out the struct that the compile is
complaining about in the eagle source file: ./driver/user/adictrl.c
It starts at about line 183, change it so that it says:
   typedef struct usb_device_descriptor __attribute__((packed))
usb_dev_desc_t;
So, this now compiles and installs, but still doesn't work.

I may be wrong, but I think the Sagem drivers take priority of the
Eagle ones and so when the modem is operational the Eagle ones are
ignored. But I tried unplugging the modem, typing: rmmod adiusbbadsl,
plugging in the modem again and then lo and behold /var/log/messages
was telling me that it had discovered an ADSL modem (with the same
messages as in the Eagle readme). When I do either ifconfig -a or
adictrl -i then I am told that I now have an eth0 (ifconfig -a doesn't
show it until the adictrl -i command is run first for some strange
reason).
But the logs still say that it wants a DSP code manually(?) sent to
the modem (confirmed by the proc entry). So I send it a DSP code (not
sure it's the right one though) by doing:
    adictrl -d /etc/analog/DSPcode.bin
which now tells me forever that: Modem is initializing(INITIALIZING)
The Eagle docs talk about building a DSP code for the modem...but no
help that I found on how to do it, so this could be the problem...or
the one in /etc/analog/ could have been built/installed at Eagle make
time I guess.

I tried the "NetworkDevices-->DSL" settings in YaST to create an entry
for 'PPP over Ethernet' on my newly assigned 'eth0'.
However, /etc/analog/adiusbadsl.conf has the following line:
   Encapsulation=00000006
Should this be '00000006' if using Sagem drivers and '00000001' for
Eagle drivers? or always the same? I have no idea but have tried, I
think, every possible combination.

Wel, the modem stilll says it is intializing, but I tried KInternet
anyway using the account created in YaST but it doesn't work (probably
no surprise). Now I see in the log:
Mar 7 09:33:04 linux pppd[4987]: Plugin pppoe.so loaded.
Mar 7 09:33:04 linux pppd[4987]: PPPoE Plugin Initialized
Mar 7 09:33:04 linux pppd[4987]: Plugin passwordfd.so loaded.
Mar 7 09:33:04 linux pppd[4987]: pppd 2.4.1 started by root, uid 0
Mar 7 09:33:04 linux pppd[4987]: Sending PADI
Mar 7 09:33:04 linux pppd[4987]: sendto returned: Network is down

So I take eth0 down and take it up again as follows:
  ifconfig eth0 192.168.60.30 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
and get told: eth0: no IPv6 routers present

then I try kInternet again and get a different message in the
KInternet log (only) about:
  Waiting for PADO. Check your setup and cables and try again.
Looking at /var/log/messages I see the following:
Mar 7 09:41:54 linux pppd[4998]: Plugin pppoe.so loaded.
Mar 7 09:41:54 linux pppd[4998]: PPPoE Plugin Initialized
Mar 7 09:41:54 linux pppd[4998]: Plugin passwordfd.so loaded.
Mar 7 09:41:54 linux pppd[4998]: pppd 2.4.1 started by root, uid 0
Mar 7 09:41:54 linux pppd[4998]: Sending PADI

I also tried the manual way as follows:
   pppd pty "/usr/sbin/pppoe -I eth0" file /etc/ppp/options.adsl
But no joy in the logs either:
Mar 7 09:59:43 linux pppd[5567]: pppd 2.4.1 started by root, uid 0
Mar 7 09:59:43 linux pppd[5567]: Using interface ppp0
Mar 7 09:59:43 linux pppd[5567]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/pts/7
Mar 7 10:00:14 linux pppd[5567]: LCP: timeout sending Config-Requests
Mar 7 10:00:14 linux pppd[5567]: Connection terminated.
Mar 7 10:00:14 linux pppd[5567]: Using interface ppp0
Mar 7 10:00:14 linux pppd[5567]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/pts/8
Mar 7 10:00:18 linux pppoe[5568]: Timeout waiting for PADO packets
Mar 7 10:00:18 linux pppd[5567]: Script /usr/sbin/pppoe -I eth0
finished (pid 5568), status = 0x100

For completenes, the options file mentioned contains the following:
user "myUser@tiscali.de"
mru 1492
mtu 1492
noipdefault
defaultroute
usepeerdns
noauth
#ipcp-accept-remote
#ipcp-accept-local
nobsdcomp
nodeflate
nopcomp
novj
novjccomp
noaccomp -am

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