[lug] Laptops again

[Michael J. Hammel]

Thus spoke Kevin Fenzi
> well, yes...there is a binary only lucent winmodem driver. I played
> with it on my laptop a while back. Some problems with it tho:
> 
> - It's compiled for kernel 2.2.12-20 (the one that shipped with orig
>   redhat 6.2). If you are using a diffrent kernel it probibly won't
>   work. (you can insmod -f it in 2.2.x kernels, but forget 2.4.x)

True, though he did ask for preinstalled Linux, which could be interpreted
as "I don't care all that much which kernel it runs."

> - On my laptop at least it gives the winmodem the same IRQ as the
>   sound drivers. So, if you try and use it and listen to music at the
>   same time they both fail to work very well. 

Ditto, except that on mine only the external speakers squeal.  The internal
audio works fine, so I just plug in some head phones and I'm a happy
camper.

> - none of the cool special features are implemented. This binary only
>   driver gives you just a serial port to use for modem calls. You
>   can't do voice mail or all that fun stuff. 

Never tried that.  Hell, I hardly use voice mail on my regular phones.  I
hate phones.

> that all said, if you are in need of a modem and you are running the
> right kernel the lucent one works ok. :)

Granted, it's not a perfect solution.  Still, it worked first time out on
my particular box.  Made me pretty happy since all other documentation I
found said internal modems wouldn't work.

One other caveat to using an IBM 1410 - I never figured out how to get the
CD to play without booting into Linux.  Apparently, I trashed something by
intalling Linux over the original Windows installation that prevents the
buttons on the edge of the laptop from working.  At least that's my
interpretation.  I can't get those buttons to work, even when I'm booted.
I have to use one of the software CD players to use the CD for music.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel           |
The Graphics Muse           |  Books we'll never see:
mjhammel at graphics-muse.org  |      "The Engineer's Guide to Fashion"
http://www.graphics-muse.com