SPEEDWEB ADSL USB on Linux

My experience with the driver

I tested the SpeedWeb driver for some day and I realized that it is very INSTABLE.

I realize that it works fine if I use the driver on a server, but when I try to browse in internet with Opera, the system halts after about 1 minute.

I realize also that it works fine if I use an X server on an other machine of my LAN.

At the end, you can use the driver if you decide to use a browser on an other PC.

I realize also that the kernel 2.4.8-26 is not stable, so the problem could be the kernel and not the driver.

This is my experience, it can be that the driver doesn’t work fine only on my PC.

My advice is that it is better to wait a new version of the driver. IPM Datacom should release an new versione that will work on 2.4.18 kernel.

Note about the installation of the driver

This is a little text that I think can help someone to use the Speedweb usb adsl modem. This is only my experience, this is not a definitive guide
Now I use this driver and I can say it works
Furthermore I use the driver on a gateway.
I need some time to say if the modem driver is stable or not.

My linux distribution is Slackware 8.0
To use the IPM driver you have to use only the Mandrake 8.1 kernel, that is 2.4.8-26mdk
You don't need to install Mandrake 8.1, you can also install only the Mandrake kernel on your linux distribution
I have tried the kernel 2.4.8, 2.4.9, 2.4.10 but after compiling process I realize that with these kernels loading the IPM module is impossible because modules dependencies. The only kernel you can use is the 2.4.8-26mdk compiled by Mandrake team. You have to download the rpm from the mandrake site. The file is kernel-2.4.8-26mdk.rpm and it is in the Mandrake 8.1 distribution

After download I have converted the rpm file to tgz (tar+gz) file using the rpm2tgz script of my slackware distribution
If you already use a linux distribution based on rpm, for example Mandrake or RedHat, probably you can avoid the conversion
I advice you to convert the file, so you can expand the file in your home directory to avoid to make damages on your system
So you have two directorys, boot and lib
In the boot directory there is the kernel you need to boot, and in the lib directory there are the kernel modules
As you can see, in the /lib/modules there are some directories  named with the version of the kernels you have compiled on your system
You have to copy  the 2.4.8-26mdk modules you have in your home directory in the /lib/modules
After this step you have to modify your /etc/lilo.conf and add the 2.4.8-26mdk kernel to boot
Now you have to run lilo, then you can reboot your system

After the boot you have to adjust the module dependencies with the depmod command. Probably this step is already executed from your linux distribution. Now you have to load the usb modules. I have got on my PC the ohci usb, so I have used modprobe usb-ohci
Now you have to modify the files /etc/ppp/...and use the mknod and chmod command following the instrucions of the SpeedWeb documentation and
I advice you to add a line defaultroute in the /etc/ppp/peers/adsl file
To load the SpeedWeb driver you have to use the command insmod ./GSPNModem Rfc2364Mode=1 Rfc2364Vci=35 Rfc2364Vpi=8
Now you have to wait the ADSL line become active.
You have to try dmesg continuosly until you can read 192 / 832
Now you can use pppd call adsl
You can see if the connection works if using ifconfig -a you can see alse the ppp0 interface

The useof  the gsi_cfg program can be avoided because you can use dmesg command and wait until you can see on the last line 192 / 832

Feel free to contact me
Good luck !

Paolo Minazzi
e-mail: paolo.minazzi(AT)email.it