adding a modem to a sparc2 questions

[Karan Bhatia <karan@cs.ucsd.edu>]

hi, 

[i'm not sure my previous post made it through, my apologies if this is
duplicated]

i'm running debian on my sparc 2, and am having trouble getting my
external serial modem working.  

upon booting the kernel does recognize the serial drivers, saying something
like:
/dev/tty00   zylog device
/dev/tty01   zylog device (maybe it is zylogic, i can't remember)

I connect the modem to the A serial port on the back, and when i try to
use pppd, it just hangs, ie it is waiting for something and not getting a 
response. 

I've tried all /dev/ttyS1 - ttyS3 devices.

There are no /dev/cua?? devices for me to try.

I've also tried the B port with the same results.  

In all cases, the lights on the modem don't even blink.

I will try and install minicom and play with it some more, but is there some
trick to this? 

btw, i'm running kernel version 2.0.35.

Any advice is appreciated...

- karan

ps.  I've also notice terrible performance when running netscape.  I have 
     32 MB of ram, and it takes litterally about 5 minutes for netscape to
     get mapped to the screen.  Is that just the way it is?