Own a Motorola SM56 winmodem and run
Red Hat Linux 7.1. Frustrated with the poor maintenance capabilities of Red
Hat I am considering moving to Debian. However, that decision depends on
whether I can be assured that my modem works. Currently I am using drivers
supplied in rpm form from Motorola; these run only on the older 2.2.* kernel.
>From my short experience with Red Hat 8.0 there is no way to migrate the
drivers to the newer 2.4.* kernel.
From the research I have done so far
it appears to me that it should not be difficult to convert the rpm package
into a deb package using "alien". The question is however, which release
of Debian to purchase and whether I have of a choice between what kernels
I want to use. According to LinuxMall.com, Debian 3.0r0 allows the user
to choose which kernel to install.
Does this mean there is any chance
my modem will work? If it does, I should get Debian 3.0r0 and install the
older kernel, or should I get an older version (e.g. 2.7.*) ? I'd appreciate
your assistance.
The drivers Motorola ships goes well also with 2.4 , tested ;)