Cisco 1004-CH - 1004 Enet/ISDN/Bri Rter User Manual download pdf (Page 67)

22. Modems

All external modems connected via a RS−232 serial port should work. This includes external ISDN adapters,

although some of the extended features of external ISDN adapaters (such as multilink) may or may not work.

Internal modems are another story, however. There are many so−called "winmodems" available now. In fact,

it seems that most PCI modems are winmodems. Some of them do have drivers for Linux now, but many of

the drivers are often binary−only. (See the note on binary−only drivers.) See Linmodems.org for more

information on Linux−supported winmodems.

Note that there are external USB winmodems on the market now, so be very careful when shopping for

external modems.

Furthermore, many flash upgradable modems only have flash programs for Win95/NT. These modems cannot

be upgraded under Linux.

A small number of modems come with DOS software that downloads the control program at runtime. These

can normally be used by loading the program under DOS and doing a warm boot. Such modems are probably

best avoided as you won't be able to use them with non PC hardware in the future.

Most 16−bit PCMCIA modems should work with the PCMCIA drivers. CardBus modems are usually

winmodems much like PCI modems. Your best bet for now is to find a card that lists compatibility with DOS

and Windows 3.1.

All that said, if a modem is known to have a real UART (or hardware UART emulation), whether it is ISA,

PCMCIA, etc., it should work under Linux.

Fax modems need appropriated fax software to operate. Also be sure that the fax part of the modem supports

Class 2 or Class 2.0. It seems to be generally true for any fax software on unix that support for Class 1.0 is not

available.

An exception to this is the Linux efax program which supports both Class 1 and Class 2 fax modems. In some

cases there can be a few (minor) technical problems with Class 1 modems. If you have a choice it is

recommend to get a Class 2 modem.

See Appendix B Linux Incompatible Hardware for specific cards known not to work with Linux.

The following are other good resources for finding Linux−compatible modems:

Rob Clark's "Winmodems are not modems" page•

Andrew Comech's "PCI modems and Linux" page•

Andrew Comech's "Cheap /Linux/ Box" section on modems•

Linmodems.org•

Most of the information below is from those sites.

Other useful documents include the following:

Modem HOWTO•

Linmodem HOWTO•

22. Modems 62

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Cisco 1004-CH - 1004 Enet/ISDN/Bri Rter User Manual Page 67