[Sderby] Re: modem compatibiltiy

[Paul Grosse]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Gibbon" <james.gibbon at virgin.net>
Sent: Sunday, June 27, 2004 12:54 AM
> On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 16:56:51 +0000
> Conrad Gavin <gubbs at fudo.org> wrote:
>
> > As long as its ethernet, there is no compatability issue.
> >
> > If its USB, thats a different matter.
> >
>
> That's true: it's a lot easier to connect a cable modem using bog-standard
ethernet
> which is obviously very well-supported in every distro.  But as a matter
of fact it
> is quite possible to hook up a Linux box to an NTL cable modem using the
USB connection
> with a bit of effort - I did so myself for a while, it worked fine under
Mandrake 9.2.
> For users who want to use the ethernet NIC for something else, worth
investigating.
>
> James
The one that I had problems with was Win98SE with IE6.0. I tried to contact
their tech bods but just got refused any advice or info going into the
system both as a potential user and as a computer journalist.

I managed to install the USB driver and it worked long enough to register
with NTL but after a while, it just stopped working - this was with the
installation engineer still onsite (I then used the 10/100 connection on the
back of the cable modem and there was no problem).

I still wanted to have the USB connection work on the 98 machine so I called
their tech bods. I eventually managed to glean the info that: their USB
driver will not work more than a short time on a machine that has Win98SE
and IE6.0 on it; and that uninstalling it and using IE5.5 (the one that they
support) would not work because it messes up the registry and uninstalling
it doesn't correct the situation (although they couldn't say how it messed
it up). Their recommendation was to reinstall Windows98 and then IE5.5 (if
you haven't ever done anything of any worth with your computer and you have
a spare week to find the installation keys for all of your selection of
software and then reinstall all, that might be okay. I also admitted that
they had known about this since the release of XP.

I would advise use the LAN and a firewall. If you have only one machine,
make sure it is firewalled. If you have more, use a firewall between the
modem and the LAN. Have a look at
http://www.grosse.is-a-geek.com/pcplus/hd210sd/hd210.html at around 3/4 of
the way down the page.

Paul Grosse.