[lug] Laptops again

[Kevin Fenzi]

David> * easy modem connectivity
>>
>> almost all laptops seem to come with winmodems. Count on buying a
>> pcmcia modem for connectivity.

Michael> Not necessarily.  The Lucent WinModems supplied in IBM
Michael> ThinkPads has a binary driver downloadable from the net.  I
Michael> found it via the Linux Laptops page for my Thinkpad 1410, but
Michael> I'm sure there are links to it from other places.  Works fine
Michael> - in fact, worked the very first time I tried it.  And it
Michael> installs extremely easily.

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)

- 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. 

- 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. 

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

also note that there are a bunch of other chipset winmodems out
there...so a laptop you get that has a winmodem might very well not
have a lucent chipset one. 

kevin