Suse Linux and GVC ADSL Modem

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Sat, Jan 15, 2005 at 12:41:19AM -0500, Peter Hiscocks wrote:
> I just installed Suse Linux Professional 9.2 on our domestic computer
> system, formerly a Windows 98 system. I was very impressed with the ease of
> installation - Suse partitioned the hard drive without any intervention,
> detected most of the hardware, and most of it works just fine. And the main
> thing, my wife is very favourably impressed with KDE and Open Office, so
> she'll probably actually use it in prefence to the Windows stuff.
> 
> However (you knew this was coming, didn't you? ;), Suse did not recognize
> the GVC BB069 ADSL modem that connects to our ISP (Pathcom), and to the
> computer via USB. (It did recognize the Canon scanner, however, which is
> also a USB device.) After looking through the manuals and browsing the
> internet, I can't find anything that (a) says how to install a driver, if
> driver is needed and (b) what driver to use. In fact, it looks as if USB
> ADSL modems are not all that common in general.
> 
> Given that this may be a Toronto centric thing (USB GVC BB069 Modem), I
> thought perhaps someone else in this group might have a solution. The Kernel
> is 2.6.8.
> 
> Any pointers or suggestions would be much appreciated.

USB ADSL modems are not common since they are really not particularly
cheaper to make than ethernet, they require special drivers for windows
usually (unless they implement usb ethernet interface, which they rarely
do), while external ethernet models just connect and use standard
software (while making the drivers the NIC vendor's problem).

I personally wouldn't bother with a USB ADSL modem given $80 gets you a
fully working ethernet model instead.  Just not worth the long term
hassle.  I also suspect it takes more procesing power to run a usb port
than it does to run ethernet at a given bitrate, although I could be
wrong on that.

Lennart Sorensen
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