[vox] SuSe 9.2 problems

[Bruce Duncan]

Hello.  I was directed here by Emily Stumpf.  I'm having two hardware 
problems with SuSe Linux 9.2.  One is that I have a US Robotics /3Com 
OEM 2976 modem.  I ran the RPM file from 3Com, and here's an excerpt 
from the description:

   It basically parses the PCI device list created during boot. If it
   finds a 3Com controller based modem it will then call setserial with
   the appropriate parameters.  If no parameter is passed 3ComMdm will
   default to /dev/ttyS3.  If you installed the 3ComMdm program from
   the RPM archive 3ComMdm-1.0-1.rpm then your system should be ready
   to go every time you boot. The installation provided the    
/etc/rc.d/init.d/serial script and the proper linkage with /dev/modem.

Sounds good, but every time I boot up it reverts to the external modem.  
If I run the script again, it works fine until the next time I reboot, 
then I'm back where I started.

The second problem is that I bought a HighPoint Rocket 100 ATA 100 disc 
accelerator which says "Linux supported" on the package, hoping to have 
four media drives (CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD-ROM and DVD-RW) on my system.  
Turns out there's a driver for SuSe 8.0, but for anything above that 
there's an open source "build your own" kit that's a bit advanced for 
me.  The instructions in the RPM file run:

2. Build the driver
---------------------
 1) Install kernel source package and building tools.

    You shall use same configuration for the kernel and the driver.
    Otherwise the driver may be unable to load or work abnormally.
       If you are using stock kernel, obtain the configuration in your 
Linux
    distribution (e.g. the kernel configuration file for Red Hat stock 
kernel
    can be found under "configs" directory in kernel source tree). Copy the
    configuration file to <your-kernel-source-dir>/.config and setup the
    kernel headers using "make oldconfig" and "make dep" commands before 
you
    build the driver.
       Please refer to the documents in your Linux distribution for kernel
    configuration.

    If the kernel contains built-in IDE support for HPT37x controller,
    you must disable the kernel support before using this driver. You can
    either rebuild a kernel without HPT37x IDE support, or use boot 
parameters
    like "hdx=noprobe" to disable the built-in driver.

 2) Extract the driver files to somewhere.

 3) Build the driver (example):

       # make KERNELDIR=/usr/src/linux-2.4.7-10
         3. Using the driver
---------------------
 1) Load module "scsi_mod" and "sd_mod" if they are not built into kernel:

       # modprobe sd_mod

 2) Load the driver.
             # insmod ./hptr100.o

    For kernel 2.6, the driver module is "hptr100.ko". Also you need to use
    the 2.5/2.6 module-init-tools (you can get them from
    http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rusty/modules/).
    modutils from 2.4 won't work with 2.5/2.6.

If someone could either expand on this or walk me through it I'd greatly 
appreciate it.

--Bruce Duncan