Support for Broadcom BCM9415M modem for Linux?

I have an Inspiron 5150 and also have a Broadcom modem.  I too have looked all over the internet with zero success.  I found the source for an older RedHat driver and recompiled it with my kernel but still was not successful.

I am fairly disappointed with Broadcom on this one that they offer zero support for their modems.  In fact, they do not even acknowledge making modems on their website.  I did find some links to Dell downloads for Broadcom Linux drivers, but they were for Redhat 7.x, which is very old.  I was hoping to find newer drivers, but my searches on the Dell downloads have produced no results.

In seeing how much this question has been asked all over the internet with no successful replies, I would love it if someone here could step up and offer a solution ( *hint hint Dell* )  :)

I am not sure what the etiquette is here regarding linking to other boards, so if desired I can post the link to the other board where I found some instructions on how to get and recompile the other driver.

My distro is Fedora Core 1 (aka Redhat 10).  Machine is an Inspiron 5150 dual booting XP Pro and Linux.

Thanks all.

My Inspiron 5100 (bought June 2003) actually uses a Conexant 5422 WinModem incorporated in an Intel 82801DB. Perhaps Dell has changed the implementation of the 5100 model a bit. In any event, do an lspci -v as root. Here's the modem portion of my 5100's response:

00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corp. 82801DB AC'97 Modem (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [Generic])
Subsystem: Conexant: Unknown device 5422
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 10
I/O ports at 1800
I/O ports at 1c00 [size=128]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2

Like you, I have not found any free WinModem drivers. However, I have found an inexpensive driver. The 5422 is an HSI modem that can be driven successfully by the Linuxant WinModem HSF driver. Linuxant has a free version you can try to see if it works with your modem, but it is limited to 14K bps. If it works, you can then buy a license for $19.95 that allows the driver to operate at full speed. Really, that's a small price to pay for the work they've put in on it. They also have some nice downloadable diagnostic tools and scripts, some donated, that help you to figure out if one of their drivers will do the job for your version of the 5100. Two nights ago, I used the diagnostics, got good news, then downloaded and installed the freebie. It works for me. Shortly, I'm going to hit their web site up for a license so I can get full speed permanently from it.

The other route you can take also happens to be from Linuxant. You can buy their Linux loader/wrapper, which allows you to employ the Windows modem driver directly in your Linux distro. I have not done that but have read reports that it works quite well.

Check out Linuxant at http://www.linuxant.com/ for company philosopy and information, http://www.linuxant.com/drivers/?PHPSESSID=f52d0e9e2c91a6be377348316b908f1c for Linuxant HCF and HSF modem drivers, and http://www.linuxant.com/company/press_dldrusr.php for information on the Linuxant driver loader, whose original purpose was to load 802.11g 100 Mbps drivers.

Regards,

DaCAP

Message Edited by dacap on 01-01-2004 06:19 PM

Message Edited by dacap on 01-01-2004 06:27 PM

Message Edited by dacap on 01-01-2004 06:28 PM

support is on its way www.smlink.com provide a driver which finds the modem and can talk to it, but it is still a beta driver and has some problems. for me it hangs on dial.

so i hope in the next few months a full version is available.

 

 

 

well a small update.
I am still unable to get the modem working.
I have also configmed that the default version of smlink's
modem driver does not support the modem's codec.

But i have been told to test there kernel 2.6 ALSA patch.
This patch is for kernel 2.6.0-test11
I tested it with kernel 2.6.0-test8 and got a system call error.
So i need to test it with 2.6.0-test11 but my internet is to slow,
so i need to wait till next week.


But if anyone else with the bmc9415m can download and test it with
2.6.0-test11 that would be good.

Kernel 2.6.1 is out. I think the differences between 2.6.1 and 2.6.0test11 are fairly minor. Even so, you might want to look at the change log to see if it is worth trying.

Thanks for the suggestions. The linuxant driver does not support this
modem, and the driverloader doesn't seem to work either. The smlink
driver gives me the same result as you, leckie. Have not tried the
ALSA thing yet, will get right on that as soon as I get some networking
problems sorted out.

Hi,
Linuxant told that they support only conextant chips on ICH. Currently they dont support for Broadcom.

Only Dell has to provide something useful.

I havnt tried smlink which I will do over the weekend.

Umapathy