[Preston] broadband and LInux

[Andrew King]

Caroline wrote:

> 'Ello!
>
> I was thinking of upgrading my Blueyonder (Telewest) dial-up to 
> Blueyonder broadband, but it seems they aren't doing any more of the 
> old ethernet connections. Instead of this they appear to run a USB 
> cable, possibly to the digibox.
>
> Have any of you any idea if I will be able to use this type of 
> connection under Linux? One of my main reasons for upgrading is to 
> skip the mucking about with modems - I need it to plug and play, so to 
> speak, or I'm not interested.
>
> Anyone?
>
> CAroline.

Hi Caroline,

First, I'd aim to find out exactly what model the USB modem is - make, 
model, chipset, that kind of stuff.  Telewest will undoubtedly be really 
difficult about telling you this but hopefully it can be squeezed out of 
them.

Once done, I'd then look into seeing if this device is supported - AFAIK 
there are howtos on http://www.tldp.org/ which cover just this issue now 
(e.g. USB broadband modems under Linux).  Could also be worth searching 
the modem details on http://www.google.com/linux.  There's a device 
database at www.linux-usb.org too.

Here's one rule I've always stuck to and never regretted: never install 
something in your kernel or run something as root that you don't have 
the source for.  Others here may disagree - lots of people do get 
winmodems and graphics cards working with binary only drivers for 
instance, and no doubt some just don't have a choice.  But I'd recommend 
that your next step is to make sure the source is available for 
Telewest's modem, and to reject their scheme if it's not.  It's kind of 
like pollution - you just don't know what it's doing, or how many bugs 
are going to be in there that could take down your system.

Hope that helps!

Ah, hang on, you said plug and play...  dunno.  But maybe some models do 
work with the latest Mandrake, SuSe and Red Hat I guess.

Andrew