DSL SpeedTouch modem
This howto shows one way to get a working speedtouch USB modem. It uses the kernel driver, not the userspace driver. This howto assumes that your ISP uses PPPoA and not PPPoE.
Kernel modules and ppp
Make sure you have a kernel with the proper support (at least the modules ppp_generic, pppoatm, slhc, atm, usbatm and speedtch). The default Arch kernel should work.
Otherwise make sure that your kernel supports firmware loading:
$ zgrep FW_LOADER /proc/config.gz
The manual way
Configuring pppd
### /etc/ppp/peers/speedtch # To connect to using this configuration file, do # pppd call speedtch lcp-echo-interval 10 lcp-echo-failure 10 noipdefault defaultroute user "username@ispname" noauth noaccomp nopcomp noccp novj holdoff 4 persist maxfail 25 updetach usepeerdns plugin pppoatm.so # Following entry is country/ISP dependent 8.48
The last entry depends on your country/ISP and is created from the VPI and VCI setting in the format VPI.VCI. This page has a VPI / VCI Setting List.
You also need to configure /etc/ppp/pap-secrets or chap-secrets, depending on your ISP. pap-secrets files are of the format:
# Secrets for authentication using PAP # client server secret IP addresses "ISP-Username" * ISP-password *
See The PAP/CHAP secrets file for more details.
If you want to use the DNS servers provided by your ISP (you probably do!) then make a symlink /etc/resolv.conf pointing to /etc/ppp/resolv.conf:
cd etc rm resolv.conf ln -s ppp/resolv.conf resolv.conf
Configure udev
Make a file /etc/udev/rules.d/99-speedtouch.rules and put something like the following in it:
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="atm", KERNEL=="speedtch*", RUN="/usr/bin/pppd call speedtch"
With this Udev will start pppd automatically, if you do not want this you can simply bring up your modem using
pppd call speedtch
Firmware
Now you have everything except the firmware loading. The easiest way is to let udev do it. Download rev4fw.zip (note disclaimer here) and unzip it. It contains two files, a small one and a big one. Copy the small file to and the big one to
# mkdir -p /usr/lib/firmware # cp small_file /usr/lib/firmware/speedtch-1.bin # cp large_file /usr/lib/firmware/speedtch-2.bin
If you cannot download this file then follow the instructions of the second link above and use the firmware extractor (or download another firmware which has the two files).
Troubleshooting
If the modem is being detected correctly and the firmware is loading, you should see something like the following from dmesg:
The pppd output in the journal should look something like:
If you are having problems you can check pppd debug messages by adding debug to /etc/ppp/peers/speedtch. This can help identify authentication problems (e.g. pap vs chap auth), etc. Otherwise make sure you check your VPI/VCI settings!