"Hen, Shmulik" wrote:
>
> Please excuse my ignorance, but does "winmodem" mean ?
> I have a PCI modem that came with a compaq deskpro and has a rockwell
> chipset. it works fine in Win98, but is not even recognized as a modem in
> linux (RH6.0). I was told this was because it is a winmodem, so I left it at
> that.
>
> Why doesn't linux handle those winmodems ?
> After all, it can handle pretty well other windows things, such as PnP etc.
WinModems (or soft modems, or host based modems) are modems that don't
include on the card board any "intelligence". They are nothing more then
a card with sound making capabilities, an electronic "Zamboora", if you
will...
All the normal "intelligence" that you found on the cards of "normal"
modems, is instead implemented in software, as a special driver. This
makes the card about 20$ cheaper to make. It also means that your CPU is
doing extra work (and quite heavy real-time work at that), but since now
days we have ~1Ghz CPUs this is not noticed by most people.
The thing is that the drivers needed to make the modem do something
useful is propriety and different from chip set to chip set. Which
usually means that the vendors make Win9x / NT drivers. If you're lucky
they have Win2000 drivers. Linux is rarely supported. This begins to
change, and there are in fact several "winmodems" that are supported by
the vendors or other parties (check out http://www.linmodems.org).
Unfortunately your specific card is not yet supported.
Part of the reason Linux people didn't pay much attention to winmodems
in the past is that Linux people used to be knowledgeable computer users
that stayed away from winmodems like the plague even when using windows.
But times are changing, and both Linux people began to soften and
winmodems got better (or the average computer CPU has gotten fast enough
so it wouldn't matter) hence the beginning of support from them.
These were 60 seconds on winmodems <sound of silly noise effect from
galatz> ;-)
Gilad.
--
Gilad Ben-Yossef <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://kagoor.com | +972(9)9565333 x230 | +972(54)756701
"I've been seduced by the chocolate side of the force."
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