On Fri, 24 May 2019 16:17:02 -0400
Felix Miata <mrmazda@...> wrote:

> Dan Youngquist composed on 2019-05-17 09:08 (UTC-0700):
> 
> > Felix Miata wrote:
> 
> >> Target is a Vaio laptop (not mine) with 2.2GHz dual core with 2GB RAM and GM965
> >> 14" 1280x800 video. I have an openSUSE maintenance installation (only IceWM for X)
> >> on it now, which will stay.
> 
> > One problem that I didn't see anyone mention, that you may already be aware
> > of:  The modem in that Vaio is almost certainly a winmodem. Most of those> can't be made to work with Linux,
> 
> Actually it is one that ostensibly is supported, technically a high definition
> audio device.
> 
> > and for those that can, it's more trouble
> > than it's worth. 
> 
> I wholeheartedly agree. I tried by starting with basics, determining whether the
> modem could work at all. My support mailing list discuss-subscribe@...
> sub attempt was returned to sender. ScanModem found a 14f1:2c06 High Definition
> Audio device that should be supported as a modem, but underlying support for
> modems in distros seems to have died through lack maintenance required for newer
> foundational software versions, e.g. glibc, gcc, etc. The driver has to be built,
> and automatic building by installing the .deb (Debian 10) or .rpm (openSUSE 15.1)
> fails with "C compiler cannot create executables" on the cli and in config.log. In
> Debian, every attempt to use apt or aptitude for anything since trying to install
> the .deb results in "E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)" on
> account of alsa-driver-linuxant producing exit status 77 in post processing. e.g.:
> 
> 	apt install wvdial

Bumbling around on the linuxant homepage for a while identifies them as the
weak link in all this--they stopped developing the driver about ten years ago,
and never upstreamed it.  They say the driver you need "works under 2.6.16 or
newer kernels", which probably means you need a kernel version V where
2.6.16 <= V < 3.0.  I don't know if any current distro carries a kernel that
old.

At this point, having your guy hit garage sales and junk shops to check for old
PCMCIA or even external modems looks like a better bet.

E. Liddell