SpeedTouchConf

Alcatel SpeedTouch USB Modem - Linux Configuration : History

Phase 1:
On 9th October 2002, I wrote a RedHat 8 review, (cache) simply because everybody else seemed to be doing it. I had been using a BSD installation to control access to the internet through this crap modem. With RedHat 8, and the kernel changes they had introduced (plus the official [kernel.org] changes), I realised that configuring a GNU/Linux system was now so easy, it could even be scripted.
I was so impressed by this, that I wrote the proof-of-concept script which could do this. (cache)

Phase 2:
To my surprise, people contacted me about the script; they seemed to expect that it might work for them. That wasn't my intention at all - I only meant to point out that following the instructions supplied by the speedtouch.sourceforge.net team was now incredibly easy, and no "special" knowledge was required.

Phase 3:
In December 2002, I created a SourceForge.net project for this script, since that seemed more sensible than hosting a growing project on my badly-written home-ISP site.

Phase 4:
Since then, a lot more people seem to have found the script to be useful.

Phase 5:
Having had some very short discussions with the speedtouch.sf.net team about integrating the two projects (which would seem to be the sensible way to go about it, and no response), I find that the speedtouch.sf.net team have bundled a similar script.
I thought that this was the end of the mailstorm I had inadvertently put upon myself - I am now freed of the burden of diagnosing the connection problems of everyone whose ISP is cheap enough to supply them with such a crap modem.
I flagged this project as obsolescing - the need to script some obscure commands was no longer required, as the driver itself included the script to configure it.
I was wrong - apparently the speedtouch-setup script doesn't work too well for some users (although, having looked at it briefly, it seems pretty good to me). The users must be right, though - if they say that speedtouch-setup doesn't work for them, and speedtouchconf.sh does work, then I'm quite happy to believe them.

Phase 6:
So this project lives on. By now it's late 2004, the script has worked for me on any distribution I've chosen to install, and I get lots of bizarre messages from users, using distributions my firewall (a 433MHz, 64MB laptop) can't deal with. I learn about these distro's (especially Mandrake 10) through these users, but don't have the ability to replicate their issues. I advertise on the sf.net site for developers who still care about this modem, and making it work on 2.6 distro's, and eventually somebody respondes positively.
I still lack the time to publish Billy's great ideas, and have commandeered a portion of my P4 machine to try out these newer distros, even though I no longer care (WBEL3 works fine for me, thanks!).

Phase 7:
By 2005 / 2006, most distro's are based on the 2.6 kernel, and bundle the speedtch (kernel-mode) driver. This can work, and I have seen it to work, but the legalese from Alcatel/Thomson means that no distro can work out of the box for this modem, because the firmware must come from Alcatel/Thomson to the user directly - the Linux distributors are not allowed to distribute the firmware. That need not be a hurdle, because SuSE, Madrake/Mandriva, and others, have included pretty GUIs to configure the modem. Unfortunately, none of them appear to have such a modem to hand, to actually test that their pretty GUIs actually work. As a result, they get in the way more than they help. My current advice is to remove the modem from any machine whilst installing Linux, as detection of the modem will (at best) result in a bad configuration.

Where this project goes in future:
I don't know. Apparently some people still find it more useful than the speedtouch.sf.net project (which I recommend that current users try first). I don't have as much time to devote to this project that I used to have.
If somebody feels inclined to give any random Linux distro a bad review because this modem is a PITA to install, they would be instructed to point their cricism towards Alcatel/Thomson for not releasing their microcode, rather than assuming that Windows is superior simple because they can click-through a pre-signed license agreement between their ISP and the modem supplier.