New Linux installation,
winmodem not recognized

You have just installed Linux for the first time.
Or upgraded a working setup.
Your modem, a winmodem, has not been recognised by the Linux installation program.

First, learn the minimum at Linmodems

The scanModem utility will help you start.

Proceed as follows:

1. If you already have a working Ethernet or WiFi connection, possibly under DSL, skip down to number 3.
2. Otherwise, use Windows on your computer ("dual boot") or any other networked computer to:
3. Download scanModem
4. In case 2 (not necessary in case 1), use a diskette or a USB disk-on-key or the like to transfer the file scanModem.gz to your Linux account.
5. Boot Linux and login if not yet active.
6. If you downloaded into Windows with the same machine, you do not need to use a diskette or whatever else.
   Type ls /mnt to see the path to your Windows disk, usually /mnt/msdos or something equally obvious.
   Copy the file to your Linux account: cp /mnt/msdos/temp/scanModem.gz . where the last dot (point) in this Linux copy command means the current directory (assuming that you stored the downloaded file at C:\TEMP on the Windows machine).
7. If you used a floppy disk to record the file, copy it to your account with mcopy a:scanModem.gz . , where the last dot (point) in this Linux copy command means the current directory.
8. If you used an USB disk-on-key or similar, use the Linux command cp to copy the file scanModem.gz from the USB device to your Linux working directory.
9. Enter the following Linux commands:
   gunzip scanModem.gz
   chmod +x scanModem
   ./scanModem
   *** Ubuntu user: replace last command by sudo ./scanModem
   *** Other user: first use command su to become superuser.
   *** All users:
   Follow the instructions which appear in the screen. Just hit Enter if you do not understand.
10. A new subdirectory named Modem was created with several files in it. cd Modem to get into. See the files. If not understood, mail ModemData.txt ONLY to our discussion list and volunteers will help you.
    Send the complete file, not only what you could think to be relevant.
    What you see on the screen while running scanModem is not ModemData.txt and is useless for us to help you.
    Do NOT send the other files, we have them, but you will possibly need them later.
11. Returning ModemData.txt to Windows for mailing:
    • You can of course mail from Linux using Ethernet or WiFi, possibly under DSL, if you have such a connection.
    • Otherwise, use a floppy disk with command mcopy ModemData.txt A:
    • Or You can as as well use an USB device.
    • Or, before doing anything else, see the hard disk properties under Windows. If your disk is formatted as NTFS, you MUST NOT try to write it from Linux. You can write from Linux if the format is FAT thus use the Linux cp command to copy ModemData.txt from your Linux working directory to the FAT-formatted Windows disk.
    • Or, carefully, you can check if you are lucky enough to have a little bit of free space on the disk not allocated to any partition, and make a small but sufficient FAT16 or FAT32 partition in that free space.

For people not able to read further, the following is copied from the link above to "instructions":

scanModem writes files full with information.
These files are frightening for a newcomer, so if you do not understand them, send ModemData.txt to our discussion list and volunteers will help you.