> Unless your time is worth nothing, the modem you bought is exactly
> the reason to buy an external USRobotics/3Com Sportster modem. It
> /is/ a honest, no-bullsh*t, old-fashioned hardware modem. It uses
> the serial chipset (UART) that's a part of practically every mobo
> built, not some "driver". And it /always/ works!
> Yes, you have to have a modem cable, and yes, there's a wallwart to
> plug in. A couple minutes trouble, and you know your modem will
> function. No guesswork, no fuss, no muss. You even get
> blinkenlights to let you know how it's doing, and if there's a
> problem with the line, just flip the its power switch.
A couple years ago I would have said exactly the same thing (and have,
in fact). Drivers were so difficult to configure that it wasn't worth
(and I was very good at getting almost anything to build). This stance
has softened recently. Over the past couple months I've built some
low-end machines (under $350 total). They came with motherboard
connectors for $4 modems. I bought them because I wasn't sure if I would
be using Win2K or Linux. And well, $4 was less than the tax for the
memory. Short of it, Fedora didn't recognize the modem on install but
after a quick Google and 15 minutes later I was dialing into an ISP.
More recently, I picked up a $7 PCI modem from CompUSA. Knoppix picked
it up and it works fine as a backup whenever the DSL goes out.
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