If you want to use a modem only for MS Windows/Dos, then you can just install almost any modem and it will work OK. With a Linux PC it's not usually this easy unless you use an external modem. All external modems should work OK (even if they are labeled "Plug and Play") But most new internal modems are Plug-and-Play (PnP) and have PnP serial ports. You may need to use the Linux "isapnp" program to configure these PnP serial ports. See the Plug-and-Play-HOWTO for more information.
Since each modem has an associated serial port there are two parts to configuring a modem:
Most of the above configuring (but not necessarily most of the effort)
is done by the communication program that you use with the modem such
as minicom
or seyon
, or by the PPP (usually needed for use
of a web browser). If you use the modem for dial-in, then the
getty
program which you use to present outsiders with a
login-prompt, will help configure. Thus to configure the modem (and
much of the serial port) you need to configure the communication
program (or PPP or getty
).
But note that not all of the configuration of the serial port is done by the communication program (or getty). The remaining configuring is simple to state (but sometimes difficult to do). It mainly consists of setting the IO address of the port and its IRQ number. In fact, plug-and-play could set these without you doing a thing. But there's a serious problem: Linux (as of early 1999) doesn't support plug-and-play very well. This may create a difficult problem for you. The next section covers the configuring of the serial port.