Info needed to create a complete usb adsl guide

[charlieg]

I'm looking to create the ultimate guide to getting people online with Gentoo and adsl. Ideally, some of this will even make it back into portage and/or the liveCD to make it ultra easy for modem users everywhere.

This will include:

• How to get your modem working for the Gentoo installation like this tip
• Kernel perparations
• Installing and configuring the modem software
• Installing and setting up pppo* software
• Creating and using an adsl rc script

What Modems need to be covered?

• Speedtouch 300 USB Modem - speedtouch.sf.net
• Speedtouch 330 USB Modem (Important as this needs you to patch the source from speedtouch.sf.net, which a lot of people don't know)

Other questions:

• Do any patches cause software to become incompatable with the original target modems?
• What packages does the various modem software use? Mine (Speedtouch 330) uses PPPoA3, but I've heard rumblings in #gentoo (in irc on freenode - try xchat or for console, bitchx) that some use PPPoE (?). Clarity on this subject would be welcomed.

Anything more that needs addressing?

Anybody know how to address some of these issues?
(I do but I'll not be able to put it together for another 24hours or so and I'd like to see what others have to say.)

[mickywicky]

pppoa3 or pppoe is up to the ISP - but pppoa* seems the better option.

[GuidoJ]

Great idea, but a load of work! The guide should include some more things:

- Depending on your ISP you need pppoe, pppoa or linux-atm. The guide should help you decide which one. For example my ISP requires me to use RFC1483 and not to dial-up.
- Here's another link for a modem: http://co800.sf.net. It requires firmware uploads, which should be described too. I expect there to be many more.

- Guido

[nailed]

In my case,i'm building a router using a Pentium 75 equipped with a pci dsl interface (it's from GVC,the chipset is all TI stuff and it use the lanai.c atm driver) but i have a question about the ppp ebuild: does it build the pppoa plugin ??

Nailed

edit: nope,it seem like pppoa.so isn't built along with pppd.

[mslay]

Hi,

I have an Alcatel Speedtouch USB modem (green fish one). After trying various configurations I have some remarks concerning the installation of this modem on different linuxes - I've tried Gentoo 1.4_rc4, Suse8.1 Redhat9, Mandrake9, IPCop 1.3.0 - on every of these itworks but :

- you must use uhci as usb-controller instead of usb-uhci as propossed by default in some distro - everything(usb,ppp support, etc) can work compiled as modules but I didn't test this on all distros
- you must use version 1.1 of speedtouch drivers (modem_run, pppoa3, etc) as the version 1.2beta1 has some problems handling big downloads
- you can use the alcaudsl.sys microcode but don't forget to put -s in modem_run command line : modem_run -v 1 -m -s -f /usr/....

HTH,

[Sleeper]

As current maintener/developper of the Eagle driver for Analog Eagle chipset equiped modem (like Sagem Fast 800/840, USR Robotics 9000 and some Comtrend ones) , I can perhaps help you on this task.

Moreover I created an ebuild for this modem, that installs it (either PPPoA or Routed IP, based on a USE flag), and provides an init script to launch it at start time.

The first version was doing routedip stuff, but I plan to "delievr" a new version that does it in a few days (it has been tested both for PPPoA and RoutedIP).

I've also written a small thread (although in French) on How to Install from Stage 1, using the Sagem Fast 800 ADSL modem: the overall process should not have changed ( I did it at time where only the official driver was available and it was bugged), although it needs some modifications.

[nailed]

Sleeper,where's your howto,i can read french.

Nailed

[Sleeper]

Hi , here it is

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=24456

ebuild is on my site :

http://sl33p3r.free.fr

[Crg]

- you must use uhci as usb-controller instead of usb-uhci as propossed by default in some distro

It depends - having tried both I've found usb-uhci works better. Its been more stable and less error messages.

- you must use version 1.1 of speedtouch drivers (modem_run, pppoa3, etc) as the version 1.2beta1 has some problems handling big downloads

I've never had problems with the speedtch kernel module.

Currently I'm using a version that I've patched myself from various patchs on lkml. Should probably look to see if there's a new official release...

ADSL is on 100% for months on an end (till I want to reboot with a new stable kernel) - downloaded 3 full sized ISO images last night alone. Currently downloading another at 41K/s and the gateway with the speedtouch modem is using about .2% of the CPU.