[hcflinux] Debian - Installation and hcfpciconfig successful, but modem does nothing

[Chris Austin]

Hello,

I have a standard vanilla installation of official Debian 3.0r1, which is
the latest version, purchased on CD-ROMs just two weeks ago.  My modem is
Conexant HCF P85 Data/Fax/Remote Tam PCI, vendor ID 14F1, device ID 1034,
subvendor ID 144F, subdevice ID 1016, subvendor name Askey.  I have
successfully installed hcfpcimodem-0.99lnxtbeta03042700, and successfully
run hcfpciconfig.  The Linux kernel version is 2.2.20, and this prevented
hcfpcimodem from completing on the first attempt.  I then ran:

apt-get install kernel-headers-2.2.20

and then ran hcfpcimodem again.  This time, when hcfpcimodem asked, "Where
is the Linux source build directory that matches your running kernel?" I
replaced /usr/src/linux by /usr/src/kernel-headers-2.2.20, and it
re-compiled the HCF modules for kernel 2.2.20, and told me:

Re-compilation and installation of HCF modules succeeded.
Your HCF modem should now be accessible as /dev/ttySHCF0 or through the
symbolic link /dev/modem.

My problems now: wvdialconf finished with, "Sorry, no modem was detected!"
Its output showed that it did indeed scan ttySHCF0 first, and stated that
/dev/modem was a link to it.  Following FAQ question 17, I confirmed with
lsmod that hcfpciengine, hcfpciserial, and hcfpciosspec are installed.
Following FAQ question 16, I installed minicom, and set the port, which I
presumed meant the serial device, to /dev/ttySHCF0.  But minicom objected
with "cannot open /dev/ttySHCF0: no such device", and similarly with
/dev/modem, even though I checked both of these are actually present.  I
then ran minicom with the port set to /dev/ttyS2, since my modem is on COM3
in Windows, which is /dev/ttyS2 in Linux.  minicom then initialized the
modem without giving any error messages, but nothing appeared in the window,
and attempting to dial one of my ISPs gave no result.

This makes me wonder: does minicom know anything at all about my
newly-installed linuxant driver?  How is the connection made between the
"virtual serial interface" /dev/ttySHCF0, (FAQ question 10), and the real
serial port for the modem, which is /dev/ttyS2?  I noticed that wvdialconf
didn't attempt to detect a modem on /dev/ttyS2, except possibly for a brief
mention of S2 near the end of its attempts.  I feel sure that the problem
must be some kind of failure to connect between the "real" serial port,
/dev/ttyS2, and the "virtual" serial port, /dev/ttySHCF0, and nothing to do
with my kernel not being 2.4 series, since that problem has apparently been
overcome.

On Jacques Goldberg's Linmodem Post Install Problems page,
http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/post-install.html
there is something about making wvdialconf work requires "linking
/dev/ttyLT0 to /dev/ttyS14".  Now this is for a Lucent modem, but is
something analogous in fact required for the Linuxant driver?

I would be very grateful for any assistance.  In case it's of any use, I
have a pen and paper record of the entire output of make install.

Best regards,
Chris Austin