Where Art Thou, BSD Winmodem Project?
JRAC writes: "Not long ago, anyone with a winmodem had pretty much no hope getting it to work under Linux. Now with projects like linmodems.org, Linux users with a dreaded winmodem actually have a chance at getting Linux to detect their modem.
I myself am a Linux user with a winmodem which works fine, because mine has a Lucent chipset, which has fairly good Linux driver support. But I am trying to migrate to FreeBSD. I knew when I installed BSD that I had no chance getting my modem working, but it didn't bother me. Now after spending hours searching Google trying to find some Lucent drivers for FBSD, I have started to wonder when is someone going to start a BSD winmodem project? Aren't there any winmodem users out there running BSD that are tired of downloading drivers only to find they don't work. What we really need is bsdmodems.org"
I think the reason there isn't more happening here is that FreeBSD is focused more on the server market. If you are running a server, you probably aren't using modem, you probably wouldn't want a WinModem, or you wouldn't mind paying for another modem if you needed to.
I would like to see the project happen as well. However, I knew that Linux has going to have better support for the Desktop environment when I set up the machine, and could have used that and gotten WinModem support on the same hardware if that was a priority.
In my case, I use FreeBSD widely for projects at work, so I chose to keep things simple by keeping the environment consistent at home.
This isn't meant to be flamebait, but why bother? It sounds like a great deal of work just to implement a fundamentally flawed concept. Real modems are cheap, work well and don't suck up expensive CPU cycles.
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