[hcflinux] Re: My AOpen FM56-P HCF PCI modem does not go off-hook

[Karl Scheel]

Dear Mark:

Thank you for responding to my message.

Upon closer examination of kppp, I discovered that it has its own 
mini-terminal program that allows a person to manually input AT 
commands. When I used the ATDT command from within this program, I was 
able to dial-out to my ISP, although I was unable to make this program 
communicate with my browser so that I could surf the Net. I was 
presented with log-in prompts from my ISP as if I was using a Telnet 
program.

I am puzzled as to why I couldn't get kppp to dial-out using the HCF 
driver in the normal way; when using the mini-terminal program, I used 
exactly the same command syntax that kppp used when dialing-out. I spent 
hours trying to tweak the settings of kppp (i.e. pre-initialization 
delay, post-initialization delay, and guard time) without success.

If the problem is with kppp, why doesn't kppp have a problem when 
dialing-out via my external modem? The only difference in kppp's setup 
with each modem is the fact that kppp communicates directly with the 
generic /dev/ttyS1 driver for the external modem, but talks to the 
/dev/ttySHCF0 driver indirectly through the /dev/modem link for the HCF 
modem. I found that kppp is capable of communicating with my external 
modem using the /dev/modem link when it is configured to point to the 
/dev/ttyS1 driver instead of /dev/ttySHCF0; that is where this link 
originally pointed. I had to delete the original link and create a new 
one while logged-in as root in order to make it point to /dev/ttySHCF0.

I would also like to know what kppp is doing when it issues the ATDT 
command that is different from what its own mini-terminal program does 
when it issues the same command. They must be doing this differently, 
otherwise both methods would either work, or fail to work.

If you, or anyone who may be reading this message could tell me what is 
going on, it would be greatly appreciated.

Once again, thank you very much for your help.

Karl

P.S. I also found that Gnome ppp was able to dial-out to my ISP, but 
held the connection for only a few seconds. I used this program from 
within KDE although it was written for GNOME. Perhaps it would have 
worked better had I been using GNOME.