USR2977 (aka 3CP2977)

pcbldrNinetyEight <pcbldrninetyeight.com> wrote:

USR2977 (aka 3CP2977)

Did you take the time to LOOK at what is in the provided RPM??

It's NOT a driver. It's a simple redhat tool that makes life easy for
lazy people. When you run the program (found in the RPM), it looks
into /proc to see where the 3com modem is and runs setserial to set it
up for you...

Here's a snip from the manpage for the tool:

"parses the PCI device list created during boot. If it finds a 3Com
controller based modem it will then call setserial with the
appropriate parameters."

The ONLY driver you need is for serial support for the kernel.

Here's an interesting discussion about your modem and one of the
contributers CLEARLY states that IT IS NOT A WINMODEM!

http://www.mail-archive.com/cooker@linux-mandrake.com/msg42258.html

P.S. I knew NOTHING about your modem, until I spent all of 2 minutes
with google... Something YOU should be able to do.

Jerry McBride <jmcbride@mail-on.us> wrote in
news:r9l8a5xrt1.ln2@supertux.my.domain:

pcbldrNinetyEight <pcbldrninetyeight.com> wrote:

USR2977 (aka 3CP2977)

Did you take the time to LOOK at what is in the provided RPM??

IIRC a RPM is some kind of package. I know not what flavors of Linux it's
compatiable with or how to use it.

The ONLY driver you need is for serial support for the kernel.

I don't know "serial support for the kernel" is or why someone would want
that.

I failed to mention that I am brand new to Linux. I booted a live DVD of
Ubuntu for the first time last Thursday. I hope this explains my lack of
knowledge. Thanks.

Jerry McBride <jmcbride@mail-on.us> wrote in
news:r9l8a5xrt1.ln2@supertux.my.domain:

pcbldrNinetyEight <pcbldrninetyeight.com> wrote:

USR2977 (aka 3CP2977)

Did you take the time to LOOK at what is in the provided RPM??

IIRC a RPM is some kind of package. I know not what flavors of Linux it's
compatiable with or how to use it.

It's NOT a driver. It's a simple redhat tool that makes life easy for
lazy people. When you run the program (found in the RPM), it looks
into /proc to see where the 3com modem is and runs setserial to set it
up for you...

Here's a snip from the manpage for the tool:

"parses the PCI device list created during boot. If it finds a 3Com
controller based modem it will then call setserial with the
appropriate parameters."

The ONLY driver you need is for serial support for the kernel.

I don't know "serial support for the kernel" is or why someone would want
that.

Here's an interesting discussion about your modem and one of the
contributers CLEARLY states that IT IS NOT A WINMODEM!

I know (knew) that it's not a winmodem

http://www.mail-archive.com/cooker@linux-mandrake.com/msg42258.html

I have insufficient knowledge of Linux for the post at that link to make
any sense to me.

P.S. I knew NOTHING about your modem, until I spent all of 2 minutes
with google... Something YOU should be able to do.

I failed to mention that I am brand new to Linux. I booted a live DVD of
Ubuntu for the first time last Thursday. I hope this explains my lack of
knowledge. Thanks.

Jerry McBride <jmcbride@mail-on.us> wrote

pcbldrNinetyEight <pcbldrninetyeight.com> wrote:

USR2977 (aka 3CP2977)

Did you take the time to LOOK at what is in the provided RPM??

IIRC a RPM is some kind of package. I know not what flavors of Linux it's
compatiable with or how to use it.

It's NOT a driver. It's a simple redhat tool that makes life easy for
lazy people. When you run the program (found in the RPM), it looks
into /proc to see where the 3com modem is and runs setserial to set it
up for you...

Here's a snip from the manpage for the tool:

"parses the PCI device list created during boot. If it finds a 3Com
controller based modem it will then call setserial with the
appropriate parameters."

The ONLY driver you need is for serial support for the kernel.

I don't know "serial support for the kernel" is or why someone would want
that.

I failed to mention that I am brand new to Linux. I booted a live DVD
of Ubuntu for the first time last Thursday. I hope this explains my
lack of knowledge. Thanks.

On Fri, 07 Mar 2008, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.hardware, in
article <Xns9A5AA74BAAFB4pcbldrNinetyEight@216.168.3.44>,
pcbldrNinetyEight wrote:

Jerry McBride <jmcbride@mail-on.us> wrote

pcbldrNinetyEight <pcbldrninetyeight.com> wrote:

USR2977 (aka 3CP2977)

That's a Condor - one of the family of PCI hardware modems from USR. It
and the Hawk family are 'OEM' modems, normally sold under a hardware
distributor (such as Dell or Gateway) brand. Looking at the PCI data,
you'd find a vendor code of '12B9' and a device code of '1008' which the
pci ID list (http://pciids.sf.net/) identifies as

12b9 3Com Corp, Modem Division
1008 56K FaxModem Model 5610
12b9 00a2 USR 56k Internal FAX Modem (Model 2977)
12b9 00aa USR 56k Internal Voice Modem (Model 2976)
12b9 00ab USR 56k Internal Voice Modem (Model 5609)
12b9 00ac USR 56k Internal Voice Modem (Model 3298)
12b9 00ad USR 56k Internal FAX Modem (Model 5610)
12b9 baba USR 56K Internal Voice Modem 3CP3298-DEL (Model
5601) [Hawk]

Those are the same basic modem design.

Did you take the time to LOOK at what is in the provided RPM??

IIRC a RPM is some kind of package. I know not what flavors of Linux it's
compatiable with or how to use it.

Others have answered this already.

It's NOT a driver. It's a simple redhat tool that makes life easy for
lazy people. When you run the program (found in the RPM), it looks
into /proc to see where the 3com modem is and runs setserial to set it
up for you...

Here's a snip from the manpage for the tool:

"parses the PCI device list created during boot. If it finds a 3Com
controller based modem it will then call setserial with the
appropriate parameters."

Mentioned in the original post, and not quoted here - the package
(which was originally developed by VALinux - a hardware distributor in
California) was for Red Hat 6.0, which came out of box in 1999 using
the 2.2.5 kernel, and that used the old 'Serial driver version 4.13'
which didn't know about the addresses used by PCI cards. Later, the
2.4.x kernel introduced a new serial driver

Aug 21 16:23:27 Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-0 with MANY_PORTS
SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI ISAPNP enabled

notice the 'SERIAL_PCI' option enabled. This driver, and the still later
'Serial: 8250/16550 driver' used in 2.6.x kernels know all about the PCI
cards, and don't need this hack to _find_ the PCI modem. I was using the
similar 3CP5610 modem with a 1.2.13 kernel before the VALinux hack was
created, and all that was needed to get this modem to run was a line in
rc.local running the setserial command (the PCI I/O and IRQ were not
likely to change unless you added/moved/removed a PCI card, so you only
had to find the modem once).

The ONLY driver you need is for serial support for the kernel.

I don't know "serial support for the kernel" is or why someone would want
that.

It used to be that PCs came with a 9 pin connector (or two) on the back
called a serial port - DOS users knew them as COM1, COM2, etc. This was
where you plugged in your mouse, UPS, or _external_ modem, before they
came up with the idea of a USB port. The 'serial support' IN (not for)
the kernel allowed the kernel to talk to that port (and by extension,
any device that looked like a serial port).

I failed to mention that I am brand new to Linux. I booted a live DVD
of Ubuntu for the first time last Thursday. I hope this explains my
lack of knowledge. Thanks.

It might have been nice to mention this earlier. 'Ubuntu' is based on
Debian, and therefore uses the other main package tool (apt and friends)
rather than rpm. It's possible to convert other packages to .debs using
'alien' but in this case, the package isn't needed, and hasn't been since
roughly 2001.

Old guy

pcbldrNinetyEight <pcbldrninetyeight.com> writes:

Jerry McBride <jmcbride@mail-on.us> wrote in
news:r9l8a5xrt1.ln2@supertux.my.domain:

pcbldrNinetyEight <pcbldrninetyeight.com> wrote:

USR2977 (aka 3CP2977)

Did you take the time to LOOK at what is in the provided RPM??

IIRC a RPM is some kind of package. I know not what flavors of Linux
it's compatiable with or how to use it.

Yes, it's how software is packaged for distributions derived from Red
Hat (including Fedora, Suse, Mandriva, and some others).

The other major package format is a .deb, used by Debian-derived
systems (including your Ubuntu, Damn Small Linux, and others). There
is a program called 'alien' that will convert an RPM into a .deb, but
you are unlikely to need it.

The ONLY driver you need is for serial support for the kernel.

I don't know "serial support for the kernel" is or why someone would
want that.

Any hardware device needs a driver. One particular device is a
"serial port"; at one time, it was one of the major interfaces used
for peripherals like mice, palm pilots, and others. An external
hardware modem plugs into the serial port, while an internal hardware
modem includes a serial port as part of the modem. So, if your
kernel has a driver for the serial port, you've got the driver you
need. Ubuntu will have it.

I believe the modem I'm talking about is circa 1999. If I understand all
the posts correctly (an assumption) then at that point in time there may
have been a need to include a Linux serial driver and this explains the
inclusion of the RPM for same.

pcbldrNinetyEight <pcbldrninetyeight.com> writes:

I believe the modem I'm talking about is circa 1999. If I understand
all the posts correctly (an assumption) then at that point in time
there may have been a need to include a Linux serial driver and this
explains the inclusion of the RPM for same.

If I recall correctly, the RPM was for a configuration tool, not for
the driver. The driver would have been in the kernel in 1999 (and, in
fact, long before).

(like HyperTerminal) just writes and reads on the serial port

ibuprofin@painkiller.example.tld (Moe Trin) writes:

The RS-232 (more correctly IEEE-232) interface predates the PC by
about
When did IEEE ever issue it as a standard? Its name has been changed
over the years to EIA-232 and TIA-232, but I've never heard it called
IEEE-232 before.

12 years (originally issued in 1969), and has been "improved" several
times over the years since. By todays thinking, it's slow and clunky,
and most new personal computers do not include it, although you can
still buy PCI cards with 2 such serial ports if needed, and internal
modems include a serial port as part of the modem. Even loosemodems
emulate such a port, although they lack the actual hardware.

Hmmm... my experience is that most new desktop PCs still have it (the
two I built a month or so ago did), while it's finally dying out from
laptops.

Really? This Dell 4100 that I've had just over four years (and was

ibuprofin@painkiller.example.tld (Moe Trin) writes:

The RS-232 (more correctly IEEE-232) interface predates

When did IEEE ever issue it as a standard? Its name has been changed
over the years to EIA-232 and TIA-232, but I've never heard it called
IEEE-232 before.

most new personal computers do not include it, although you can
still buy PCI cards with 2 such serial ports if needed

I suspect the OP won't be wanting to write any shell scripts for a
while (based on his/her own statements regarding background).

Joe Pfeiffer (pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu) writes:

Hmmm... my experience is that most new desktop PCs still have it (the
two I built a month or so ago did), while it's finally dying out from
laptops.

Really? This Dell 4100 that I've had just over four years (and was
a hand me down then) only has one serial port. I've looked, and there's
nothing in the manual or any mystery headers on the board to suggest a
second serial port.

I assume from that it is disappearing in more recent computers. It's
hard enough with only one serial port, and of course all the boards
I have lying around don't help one bit since they are all ISA boards.