5. Configuring your Phone

Currently Reliance comes with one of two brands of handsets: LG and Samsung. TATA Indicom also provides two handsets: LG and AXESSTEL.

Plug the cable to the phone and also to the system.

It is important to note that all these phones act as a serial modem so they do not require a driver or anything. After you have connected your phone to the cable, the cable is plugged in either COM1 or COM2 (and not COM3 or COM4, as these are virtual ports).

Remember:

• COM1 in LINUX is /dev/ttyS0

• COM2 is LINUX is /dev/ttyS1

Your phone modem works on either of the two ports, but I suggest that first try /dev/ttyS1, so as not to disturb other peripherics on your system that are also using a serial port, which would then usually be on /dev/ttyS0.

First check if your COM port is fine using the command

setserial /dev/ttyS1 -a

If it displays something like this:

	dev/ttyS1, Line 1, UART: 16550A, Port: 0x02f8, IRQ: 3
        Baud_base: 115200, close_delay: 50, divisor: 0
        closing_wait: 3000
        Flags: spd_normal skip_test
	

then your COM port is fine. If this does not work, it is possible that PPP support is not configured after all. Return to Section 4 to check. If you are sure that PPP support is configured on your system, maybe the problem is with the COM port. You could try the other port in that case.

Now go to the shell and type

cat /dev/ttyS1

If this prints nothing, your phone is configured. Type CTRL+C to exit.

If your modem is not configured, the cat command would give an error message like this:

	cat: /dev/ttyS1: No such device

Alternately, in case you use KDE, start the KPPP program: go to the desktop and press Alt+F2 and type "kppp" in the box which appears. This will start KPPP.

Testing using KPPP:

Click on the Configure button. Go to the Modem tab.

	Lock file
	BE SURE TO UNCHECK THE USE LOCK FILE CHECKBOX in the modem properties, else it may give some random errors.

If all is fine you will be presented with a window with some blank textboxes and you can go ahead.