6. Testing the drivers

There is only one way to check whether the drivers are working or not. You will have to see if your modem is recognized or not. The driver makes a node for your modem at /dev/ttyS15 , no matter what com port it may be in in M$DOS/M$ Windows. /dev/ttyS15 is symlinked to /dev/modem and as most programs search for a modem at /dev/modem first, you will not have to fiddle with the settings/configs of those programs. The program that I use to test my modem in GNU/Linux is minicom. If you have minicom installed, what you have to do is type

bash$ minicom

in a shell prompt or in a terminal emulator window. If everything is all right, you will see a Initializing modem message for a few seconds and then a screen with a blinking cursor. Just type in ATZ in that screen and hit the enter key. If you see a OK message, then, congratulations, your modem is working in GNU/Linux. Type in ATI 3 and hit enter and you will see a PCtel HSP56 MicroModem output. If you get a error message, or if you fail to get any response from minicom proceed to the troubleshooting section. If everything is all right up to now, you can go ahead to configure your dialer software and connect to the internet, and please do take some time to submit your modem information to the compatibility database at http://pctelcompdb.sourceforge.net. Also, you may consider helping out the author. See this section for more information.