Using Motorola SM56 Win-modem 

After a long wait, Motorola has finally released Linux drivers for their popular SM56 data/fax Internal PCI soft modem. This is the first release and it is free and fully functional.

The driver has also been included on the PCQ Linux CD 2 under /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS

Installing

Mount the PCQ Linux CD 2 and change to /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS/



Do


~# rpm -Uvh sm56-85.1-10.i386.rpm

Now run ‘sm56setup ’. There is no country code specific for India so we shall use the one that comes close to our set up–Hong Kong. See the SM56 man page (man sm56) for a list of valid country codes.

~# sm56setup 852

This will compile the SM56 driver module for the current running kernel and copy it to the kernel module directory, create a symlink /dev/modem pointing to /dev/sm56 and add the following to

/etc/modules.conf

alias char-major-24 sm56



options sm56 country=852

Insmod the driver

Do ‘modprobe sm56’ to load the driver



~# modprobe sm56


The output of ‘dmesg’ will show like this:


~# dmesg


Motorola Softmodem: version SM56 Rel. 5.00 Build 85

Testing

Test the setup by running a serial communication program like ‘minicom’. Make sure that the communication program uses /dev/modem or /dev/sm56 for the modem port.

~# minicom



Wait for minicom to initialize the modem and give an ‘OK’ prompt. Type ati7 to print out the modem type.


Welcome to minicom 1.83.1


OPTIONS: History Buffer, F-key Macros, Search History Buffer, I18n


Compiled on Feb 23 2001, 07:31:40.


Press CTRL-A Z for help on special keys


AT S7=45 S0=0 L1 V1 X4 &c1 E1 Q0


OK


ati7


Motorola SM56 PCI Fax Modem


OK

Once you have verified that the modem is working properly, configure your PPP dialers like rp3 and kppp to use /dev/modem as the modem port.

This is the first release of a Linux driver for the SM56. If you are having trouble, make sure you bug the Motorola SM56 driver team at

SM56LinuxSupport@motorola.com

For the latest on Win-modems and Linux, see http://linmodems.org

Shanker Balan is a technology research consultant with Exocore Consulting