[NBLUG/talk] Re: xminicom problems

[Jim Bianchi]

On Mon, 30 Jun 2003 talk-request at nblug.org wrote:
>Yes. Often, you will find devices owned by a specific user and group.

[root at garbanzo /dev]# ls -l ttyS4
crwxrwx--x   1  root    uucp    <yacketa-yacketa>


	After searching through /etc/group/ and finding nothing at all
that looked as if it might help, I returned to /dev/ttyS4, and chmoded
it:

[root at garbanzo /dev]# ls -l ttyS4
crwxrwxrwx   1  root    uucp    <yacketa-yacketa>

	And now it works. Part of the problem was my fault. I assumed
that, hey, if you could execute a modem program, that should be all that
was needed to be able to use the thing, right? Wrong. Unless you can
figure a way to use a modem control program without ever reading from or
writing to the file the pgm must talk to (/dev/ttyS4 in this case). Duhh.

	FWIW, I'm using a Xircom RealPort Cardbus combo Ethernet 10/100
and 56k modem PCMCIA card on a Dell Latitude C600. The laptop mobo has a
built in 56k winmodem, but that is not even recognised by Linux (and from
what I've read on the web, there is no chance it will ever be), so that's
a total loss. But the Xircom PCMCIA modem seems to work well (esp once you
get the permissions straight <grin>), and is to be recommended. It seems
to respond to most all of the Hayes instruction set -- I plugged 'S11=40'
into my modem init string to make it dial faster. Instead of a very slow
'beep' (pause) 'beep' (pause) 'boop' ... I get a rapid 'beedleebeepboop'
that is emotionally satisfying. (I'm easily amused..)

	I've not really done much with the eth0 thingy yet. But dmesg does
indicate it is recognised, so at least Linux knows it's there. I'm still
trying to get my DVD reader (xine) to stop pausing slightly the audio and
video. Any suggestions on that one?

-- 
jimbo at sonic.net