need help with dialup, ppp

["freefood" <freefood@gateway.net>]

I just installed debian on my machine and I ran pppconfig to setup dialup
and now I run into this message when I run pon followed by plog

pppd 2.3.5 started by root, uid 0
tcgetattr: input/output error(5)
exit

The modem doesn't even dial. I don't know how to go about fixing this. I
don't even know if linux recognizes my modem when it boots. The modem does
work under win98 and I verified that it is COM2, so I set the device to
/dev/ttyS1. I left everything else at the default settings. I have a 56k
modem.

please help!
thanks,
jeff