I have a new Dell linux (Red Hat 8.0) computer. For some reason, Dell
shipped the internal pci modem (broadcom is the brand of the modem)
separate from the computer. I installed the modem in a pci slot, but
linux does not recognize the modem. It does not show up in the list of
hardware in the gnome "hardware browser". The Internet Connection
Wizard (also in Gnome) says "No modem was found on your system". I am
new to Linux. How can I get my modem up and working? |
Request for Question Clarification by
maniac-ga
on
09 Apr 2003 18:31 PDT
Hello Tayloenic,
There are a number of possible causes but a few quick questions should
help isolate which one.
If you reboot the system, do you get a message asking you to configure
"new hardware"? You do have to respond to this, otherwise the system
will ignore the added card.
Another thing to try is the command (from a terminal window)
/sbin/lspci
You should get a few lines listing items in your computer including
the modem. If the modem does not appear, try power off / remove &
replace the board and try again. If the card is listed, what is the
output of
lsmod
There should be a module listed that refers to the modem here as well.
Thanks.
--Maniac
|
Request for Question Clarification by
chellphill-ga
on
09 Apr 2003 18:56 PDT
To further research this, could you please provide the chipset number?
It will start with BCM
Thanks
chellphill-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
tayloenic-ga
on
10 Apr 2003 09:11 PDT
Hello. Thanks for your interest in my question.
If I reboot system, I do NOT get any message about new hardware. :(
The results of /sbin/lspci are:
00:00.0 Host bridge: ServerWorks: Unknown device 0017 (rev 32)
00:00.1 Host bridge: ServerWorks: Unknown device 0017
00:02.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82540EM Gigabit Ethernet
Controller (rev 02)
00:04.0 Modem: Broadcom Corporation BCM v.90 56k modem (rev 02)
00:08.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage XL (rev
27)
00:0e.0 IDE interface: ServerWorks: Unknown device 0217 (rev a0)
00:0f.0 Host bridge: ServerWorks: Unknown device 0203 (rev a0)
00:0f.1 IDE interface: ServerWorks: Unknown device 0213 (rev a0)
00:0f.2 USB Controller: ServerWorks: Unknown device 0221 (rev 05)
00:0f.3 ISA bridge: ServerWorks: Unknown device 0227
Line 00:04.0 seems to indicate that the system knows SOMETHING about
the modem.
Results of /sbin/lsmod are:
Module Size Used by Not tainted
nls_cp437 5116 1 (autoclean)
vfat 13084 1 (autoclean)
fat 38712 0 (autoclean) [vfat]
nls_iso8859-1 3516 1 (autoclean)
ide-cd 33608 0 (autoclean)
cdrom 33696 0 (autoclean) [ide-cd]
soundcore 6532 0 (autoclean)
autofs 13348 0 (autoclean) (unused)
e1000 55916 1
iptable_filter 2412 0 (autoclean) (unused)
ip_tables 14936 1 [iptable_filter]
mousedev 5524 1
keybdev 2976 0 (unused)
hid 22244 0 (unused)
input 5888 0 [mousedev keybdev hid]
usb-ohci 21320 0 (unused)
usbcore 77024 1 [hid usb-ohci]
ext3 70368 5
jbd 52212 5 [ext3]
I don't see anything about a modem in all that.
Chipset is BCM94212 or BCM4212. It is writen both ways in various
places on the modem card.
Thanks,
Tayloenic
|
Request for Question Clarification by
maniac-ga
on
10 Apr 2003 11:18 PDT
Hello Tayloenic,
Hmm. This appears to be a "software modem" and may require a special
driver from Dell. Try
rpm -q -a | grep -i bcmsm
to see if the driver module is loaded on your system. If so, then try
rpm -q -l (name of package listed above)
to list the files. There should be a .o file somewhere under
/lib/modules. Try
insmod (name of driver)
to see if the system will recognize it.
If not, there is a description of the modem at
http://www.modemsite.com/56k/bcm.asp
and lists Dell provided Linux drivers as well (source and binary
forms). You may be able to load the Red Hat 7.3 drivers by following
the instructions - the recent kernels for both RH 7.3 and 8.0 are the
same. If not, the source RPM's are available and I can walk you
through the build / install process.
--Maniac
|
Clarification of Question by
tayloenic-ga
on
11 Apr 2003 10:55 PDT
Maniac:
The result of rpm -q -a |grep -i bcmsm is:
BCMSM-3.4.19-6
When I do a rpm - q -l BCMSM-3.4.19-6 I get:
/etc/rc.d/init.d/BCMSM
/lib/modules/2.4.18-3/misc/BCMSM.o
/lib/modules/2.4.18-3bigmem/misc/BCMSM.o
/lib/modules/2.4.18-3smp/misc/BCMSM.o
/lib/modules/2.4.18-4/misc/BCMSM.o
/lib/modules/2.4.18-4bigmem/misc/BCMSM.o
/lib/modules/2.4.18-4smp/misc/BCMSM.o
Then , from the root directory, I did
insmod -o BCMSM-3.4.19-6 and that just gave me a "usage" listing
of apparently how to use the insmod command. It shows several options
in square brackets [] and several switches. I was unable to copy the
screen output to a file so I could show it to you here.
By the way, rpm -q kernel says that my kernel is 2.4.18-14 if that
helps.
So apparently I have the module that I need on the computer (BCMSM.o),
it just isn't properly loaded into the kernel. Please let me know if
you can instruct me as to how to proceed.
Thanks,
Tayloenic
|
Request for Question Clarification by
chellphill-ga
on
13 Apr 2003 12:39 PDT
Hi tayloenic-ga
Sorry It has taken so long to get back to you. I have been looking
high and low to find a solution for you. I have tried forcing the
module, but that will not work due to possible differences in the
kernel versions.
However, I believe I might have your solution, but first I need to
know if you would be willing to upgrade your kernel to 2.4.18-27.8.0?
Thanks for your patience,
chellphill-ga
|
Request for Question Clarification by
maniac-ga
on
14 Apr 2003 05:12 PDT
Hello Tayloenic,
Hmm. I have to do a little more research to determine if BCMSM is the
right module. There may be some comments in /etc/init.d/BCMSM that
would indicate that one way or another. That should be a script to
start / stop use of the related modules. If so, you can try
/etc/init.d/BCMSM status
as the root user to see if the service was started and then
/etc/init.d/BCMSM start
if not, to start it. If this fixes your problem - I can follow up with
an explanation of using chkconfig to make this run automatically at
boot time.
It may also be necessary as the root user to use
modprobe BCMSM
to load the kernel module before doing the above.
Assuming everything else is set up OK, that command should load the
module and satisfy any dependencies that it may have. This is
described at
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Module-HOWTO/
in section 5. You may get some messages on the display and at the end
of
/var/log/messages
if so - please provide them in a question clarification.
Also check out
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-8.0-Manual/custom-guide/ch-kernel-modules.html
which is the section of the RedHat 8.0 Customization Guide that
describes kernel modules. It also mentions that a line should be added
to /etc/modules.conf to automatically load this module when your
system reboots.
I am still looking to see if kudzu (Red Hat's hardware configuration
routine) should be able to automatically detect this equipment once
the right driver is loaded. I will also look inside the driver
download from Dell to see if that provides any further clarification.
--Maniac
|
Request for Question Clarification by
maniac-ga
on
14 Apr 2003 15:27 PDT
Hello Tayloenic,
I did the additional research. The BCMSM package should be the one for
your 56k modem. I downloaded the package and loaded on a test system
to review what was installed and the comments do indeed indicate it is
for the 56k modem.The command
/etc/init.d/BCMSM status
won't work, but
/etc/init.d/BCMSM start
should do everything necessary. Also, try
chkconfig --list | grep -i BCMSM
to see if you get output like
BCMSM 0:off 1:on 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
which indicates it is enabled for starting at reboot.
I am assuming this script should work OK - I can't tell w/o the
hardware. If it doesn't, let me know what error messages you get.
--Maniac
|
Clarification of Question by
tayloenic-ga
on
17 Apr 2003 09:05 PDT
Maniac:
The results of /sbin/chkconfig --list |grep -i BCMSM are:
BCMSM 0:off 1:on 2:on 3:off 4:on 5:off 6:off
So BCMSM is on at some runlevels and sometimes off. What's the point
of that???
The results of /etc/init.d/BCMSM start are
Starting BCMSM: BCMSM mknod: wrong number of arguments
Try `mknod --help' for more information.
chmod: failed to get attributes of `/dev/ttySMconfig': No such file or
directory
So..... the BCMSM program (which appears to be a perl script) is
trying to issue a mknod command at some point and not using enough
arguments. ??? And also it is having a problem finding or using the
device called /dev/ttySMconfig.
I'm in over my head here...........
chellphill: I would like to stick with my current version of Linux
for now.
hummer: I may have to end up calling Dell, but I'd like to put up a
little bit of a fight with this modem first......
|
Request for Question Clarification by
chellphill-ga
on
17 Apr 2003 09:58 PDT
tayloenic-ga
The reason I asked if you wanted to update your kernel (not the redhat
8.0) is because I found someone who was able to compile the above BCM
kernel module for the 2.4.18-27 kernel that is the latest update to
the RedHat 8.0 systems. Their Broadcom is now working with their
redhat 8.0. I can get you the binary and source RPMs, with
instructions to build drivers for future kernel releases.
Both the source and binary RPMs are compiled for a
specific kernel version (i.e. 2.4.18-27.8.0). However, I do have
instructions on how to create RPMs for your system with a different
kernel version. My attempt to try this with 2.4.18-14 was unsucessful,
however if you would like to give it a shot let me know. You might be
able to make it work. If not there is still the option of going to
kernel 2.4.18-27
Thanks,
chellphill-ga
|
Request for Question Clarification by
maniac-ga
on
18 Apr 2003 08:03 PDT
Hello Tayloenic,
Hmm. The results from chkconfig don't make sense to me either. Fix
with
chkconfig --level 12345 BCMSM on
which will enable the modem at start up for all the normal run levels
(and disable at shut down and reboot).
Part of the problem w/ the BCMSM script is that it it assumes you have
the right kernel version. As you said, you are using
2.4.18-14
and the BCMSM installed on your system is built for kernel versions
2.4.18-3 or 2.4.18-4
I should have noticed this the last time, sorry.
As noted by chellphill, the options are to:
- upgrade to a newer kernel (2.4.18-27). This is a pretty big job -
you need both the source and binary RPM for this is about 26 / 12.3
Mbytes in size but may require a few other RPM's before it will
install. It can be fetched from
http://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/updates/8.0/en/os/i386/
(scroll down to kernel-2.4.18-27.8.0.i386.rpm) Use rpm -i to install
the necessary packages and update the boot configuration file to use
the new kernel. Then install the source RPM and put it into
/usr/src/linux; this may take a few steps to walk through to do this.
- build the driver for your specific kernel - the source RPM is about
494 Kbytes in size and requires the current kernel source to be
installed (usually in /usr/src/linux). It can be fetched from
http://support.ap.dell.com/ap/en/filelib/download/index.asp?fileid=R47114
Follow the instructions to build it but note that chellphill had
problems with this. It may be that the configuration file is not set
up properly in the linux directory - I can suggest some ways to fix
that (tell me the error messages). When built and installed, it should
move the module file into
/lib/modules/2.4.18-14/misc/BCMSM.o
which is where the initialization script will expect it to be found.
- the third option is a hack but may work is to
cp /lib/modules/2.4.18-4/misc/BCMSM.o
/lib/modules/2.4.18-14/misc/BCMSM.o
to put it where it is expected, run depmod -a to rebuild the
dependencies and try the BCMSM initialization script again. You may
get an error in the depmod step (e.g., symbol mismatch) and if so -
this won't work. [its a long shot]
It would be far better to get the right version directly from Dell - I
am not sure why they didn't do that in the first place. This is
certainly points out a failure in their configuration / sales systems.
--Maniac
|
Request for Question Clarification by
maniac-ga
on
24 Apr 2003 16:13 PDT
Hello Tayloenic,
Just a follow up - do you still need an answer for this question?
If not, I suggest you close the question - so you can't be charged for
an answer.
If yes, what additional information do you have that can lead one of
us to a complete answer?
--Maniac
|
Clarification of Question by
tayloenic-ga
on
28 Apr 2003 14:28 PDT
Maniac:
Sorry for the delay. I've been doing my real job! I think I will end
up having to call Dell to help me with this modem problem. It may
take awhile. However, the info you and Chellphill have given me about
this problem has taught me a lot about Linux, so it has definitely
been worth the $50. I'm embarrassed to say that I don't know how to
pay you. How do I pay?
tayloenic
|
Request for Question Clarification by
maniac-ga
on
28 Apr 2003 17:09 PDT
Hello Tayloenic,
How to pay?
Well - someone has to answer the question and that person will be
paid. I assume you will want the split the price so let me suggest the
following:
- change the price of this question and indicate in a question
clarification who should answer it (e.g., chellphill).
- put in a second question, titled something like "For Maniac - Modem
configuration..." [or chellphill] with the rest of the price.
Both of us will answer the respective questions & be paid.
--Maniac
|
Clarification of Question by
tayloenic-ga
on
01 May 2003 07:18 PDT
Chellphill:
I am taking Maniac's suggestion that I break this question into 2 so I
can pay you both something. Please answer this question. As I told
Maniac, the modem is not working yet, but with your and his
suggestions, I believe i can make it work eventually, even if I DO
have to call DELL tech support. The info I have gotten here is
valuable. I changed the price to $25.00. Please answer this question
and collect the $25.00 I will post another question for Maniac to
answer.
Thanks,
Tayloenic
|
