Gentoo 1.4 with USB Speedtouch Modem installation guide

Zebulon · n00b Joined: 22 Sep 2002 Posts: 15

I searched for "speedtouch" in this forums and found a lot of messages, but none explaning how to connect with a USB speedtouch modem right after boot.

I guess I'm not the first one to achieve this. It took me about 30 min to figure it out and since nobody seemed to have posted a guide, i'll explain it here.

What you need :
- a Gentoo LiveCD (pretty obvious I know)
- a floppy with "mgmt.o" on it (the alcatel modem driver)

What you need to do :
- boot from the cd and when you get the boot prompt
- modprobe floppy (to mount the floppy)
- modprobe ppp_generic
- modprobe ppp_async
- modprobe n_hdlc (a line will be output, it's normal)
- modprobe ppp_synctty
(all those are for the pppd deamon to work)
- mkdir /mnt/floppy
- mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy (don't forget to put the floppy in its drive

)
- cp /mnt/floppy/mgmt.o /home/
- edit /etc/conf.d/speedtouch and change the path for the mgmt.o file (/home/mgmt.o) and don't forget to uncomment this line
- edit /etc/ppp/peers/adsl.sample and put your connection ID (fti/*****@fti) at the indicated place and save the file under "adsl"
- edit /etc/ppp/pap-secrets and put this line in : 'your_connection_ID' * 'your_connection_pass' *
- edit /etc/ppp/chap-secrets and put the exact same line as above
- run /etc/init.d/speedtouch start

and that's it ..... !! oh ! I almost forgot ........
- dance with joy !!

I hope it helps some people.....
I don't anderstand why those steps aren't explaned in the install guide. The support for the modem is implemented so explanations should be given.

Note : if you get the little bulk_msg error (which absolutly doesn't stop your modem from working) you can edit /etc/init.d/speedtouch and add the "-s" option to the modem_run line.

iKiddo · Guru Joined: 27 Jun 2002 Posts: 341 Location: Europe?

THis should be in Documents, Tips & Tricks, I'll PM a mod

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

For now I'm going to make it sticky here in Installing. I think most people trying to Install Gentoo would look to this forum first, and there have been quite a few Speedtouch oriented threads.
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laurentbon · n00b Joined: 16 Feb 2003 Posts: 15 Location: uk

Just to add to this excellent post that sorted me out, if you have a usb floppy drive rather than a regular one, replace:

bosko · Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2003 3:21 pm Post subject:

Is this how-to written for the green Alcatel Speedtouch USB ADSL modem?I.e. this one: [img:3f78c56767]http://www.kpn.com/common/graphics/products/mxstreamusbmodems.gif[/img:3f78c56767]

fifo · Guru Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Posts: 437

bosko · Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2003 4:27 pm Post subject:

fifo · Guru Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Posts: 437

bosko · Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2003 12:23 am Post subject:

Thanks for your post,I think that I'll manage to get my modem to work now.

Btw,I only have to modify use pap-secrets.

bosko · Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2003 3:39 pm Post subject:

Okay,the modem worked fine during install,but after the installation I couldn't get the modem to work with this how-to,so I resorted to the how-to that I always used under Red Hat (and worked fine); http://home.planet.nl/~andje000/linux.html
When I do a "modprobe n_hdlc" it says that it can't find the module n_hdlc.How can I compile that module (what kernel configuration options do I need)?
When I try to make my internet connection anyways I get the error that it can't find my USB modem.Does this have anything to do with the n_hdlc problem?If not,what options do I need to set in my kernel configuration to make it work?

fifo · Guru Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Posts: 437

You should be able to get things working by essentially following the howto. The kernel options you need are

bosko · Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2003 5:09 pm Post subject:

Thanks alot for you reply,but unfortunaly it still doesn't work.I recompiled the kernel with those options and rebooted,but when I try to make my internet connection I get the error that the usb modem cant be found.
Emerge speedtouch ofcourse doesn't work because I have no internet connection.

fifo · Guru Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Posts: 437

What command exactly is it that gives you the error?

If you haven't installed the speedtouch package, you can boot from the livecd, setup your internet connection and chroot into the system as you did for the install, and then run the emerge. You should also copy mgmt.o to somewhere on your disk (I've put it in /root). Then you can reboot, setup the configuration files, and it should work.

bosko · Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2003 5:51 pm Post subject:

/usr/local/bin/modem_run -f /adsl/mgmt/mgmt.o -m gives the error that the modem was not found and that /proc/bus/usb doesn't exist.

Well,I have speedtouch and mgmt.o but I believe that the problem is that the modem isnt recognized.So far this how-to has always worked (under Red Hat): http://home.planet.nl/~andje000/linux.html ,but now I get the error that the modem cant be found.

How do I chroot into my system?Was that mkdir /mnt/gentoo; mount /dev/hda4 /mnt/gentoo; chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash;env-update;source /etc/profile ?

fifo · Guru Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Posts: 437

You shouldn't need to run the modem_run command yourself. What happens if you just do "/etc/init.d/speedtouch start" instead? This should mount the usb filesystem that it's complaining about, do the modem_run, and then bring up the connection.

BTW, I think you've got the chroot procedure right, but you shouldn't need it if you've already emerged speedtouch.

Keyed · Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2003 6:56 pm Post subject:

Is the USB modem lights on? Once the USB filesystem is mounted and n_hdlc and uhci is either compiled in or modprobed, it should work if the password and isp information is filled out correctly. My works fine.
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bosko · Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2003 7:12 pm Post subject:

bosko · Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2003 7:59 pm Post subject:

Okay,I setup my connection,chrooted and emerged speedtouch.I configured pap-secrets,adsl,speedtouch and resolv.conf.I can run /etc/init.d/speedtouch start now,but I get the same error; /proc/bus/usb doesn't exist.

I really have no idea what is wrong :cry:

fifo · Guru Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Posts: 437

Do a reboot and try it without using the livecd.

If it still gives the error, what happens if you try to mount it manually like this

bosko · Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2003 8:36 pm Post subject:

No,it doesn't work.

I can't mount it,I get an error saying that "/proc/bus/usb" doesn't.I also couldn't create it with mkdir.

/proc file system support is on,but I am not sure about USB device filesystem,in which catagory in menuconfig is it (I didn't see it)?

fifo · Guru Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Posts: 437

bosko · Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2003 9:36 pm Post subject:

Yes,I have that option turned on.Doesn't work,eventhough I have everything turned on that you mentioned (all built in,no modules).

I wonder why it works with the cd,but not with my installation

fifo · Guru Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Posts: 437

Well I don't know what to suggest--you need to be able to mount /proc/bus/usb to use the modem. If you had it working in redhat, could you compare the kernel configs for differences? You could also try the other UHCI option from the one you've currently selected (under USB support) but I don't know if it'll make any difference.

bosko · Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2003 5:00 pm Post subject:

I compiled all the USB stuff as modules (because I read in another thread that it might fix this problem) and modprobe usbcore works fine,but modprobe usb-uhci gives an error that the device can't be found.UHCI is selected as module,but why doesnt modprobe usb-uhci not work?

jcsjr · n00b Joined: 03 Mar 2003 Posts: 22 Location: Alabama

Are you using 1.4RC3 by chance? I had things working under RC2 then had to start over, so I tried RC3. The manual modem/PPP startup worked fine but I could not get it to load the modem and PPP together when booting from the new kernel. One or the other would start but never both and most of the problems centered around not seeing the modem. So I went back to RC2 and had no problems getting the Speedtouch working.