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Programming IT Technology

Upping The Softmodem Code Bounty -- To $20,000 234

Posted by timothy from the price-negotiable dept.
Alex Pilosov writes: "I've announced a bounty for completion of softmodem code (20k$) on linmodems-discuss list. If this is successfully completed, we'll have a completely universal driver for any kind of winmodem without any proprietary code which result in all sorts of kernel version problems." Here's the full text of the announcement and conditions.
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Upping The Softmodem Code Bounty -- To $20,000 More

Upping The Softmodem Code Bounty -- To $20,000

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  • Motivation? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by gregfortune ( 313889 )
    So, anyone know if this dude is just really really cool, or if there is some motivation to offer a bounty like this? Too bad I don't have a clue on how to go about writing modem drivers :)

    Greg

    • Re:Motivation? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Kraft ( 253059 ) on Monday November 19, 2001 @06:20AM (#2583883) Homepage
      I was curious about his @pilosoft.com address, but the site is blank. However, a google search on his name revealed a personal homepage [formenos.org].

      One thing worth noting: he's 22 years old.. hmmm. According to his resume [formenos.org], he has contributed to apache, mod_perl, postgresql and freebsd.

      My personal guess is that he has convinced one of his employers to pay for this (Lazard Ferez & Co., which he works for, seem potential, but i don't know enough about them). I'll be following the bounty thread [linmodems.org].

      Anyway, I think he is for rea and wish him good luck. Here's a picture [formenos.org] of our hero
    • Sheesh, some guys just cannot _bare_ to buy a new modem for oohh... 30 quid?

      (Note that this is a joke so don't start arguing with me)
      • Sure...30 quid is not much, but think portable computers. Most of them come with a winmodem. Okay, you decide not to use it, that's okay. A coworker of me, who is a convinced Linux user, was pissed of by this fact and ran off to buy a PCMCIA modem. His pick: a 3Com modem because of the brand. He came home and installed it, and behold, it was a WinModem!!! You can bet he was disappointed. He -just like me- was convinced that a quite expensive PCMCIA modem would have been a hardware modem. Well, they are not. It's not written on the box, but next time I see "designed for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP" on a modem box I will know what that means: don't try under Linux. He asked the salesperson if it would work with Linux, but they are so badly informed that they had no clue ("Harware modem? What's that? It's a modem...") Just go and look at the brand-name PCMCIA modems around, you'll be astonished how many are actually WinModems.

        Note that he found a hardware PCMCIA modem, inexpensive no-name, but he insisted to the salesperson to try it in his laptop before purchasing. He was lucky the salesperson allowed it. Oh, if you want a 3Com PCMCIA WinModem, I think he'll be happy to sell it to you. It won't be used anyway.
        I only have one modem, and old 33.6 TDK which I use occasionaly in my old laptop (for downloading email). That modem dates back from the times that softmodems were nonexistent, and everyone would have found it very strange to actually emulate a modem in software. Ah, the good old times. :-)


        • Hardware PCMCIA modems are not as difficult to find as you imply... just check a Linux hardware database or run some searches on Google before buying.

          My Linksys PCMLM56k+ (which is both a 10/100 ethernet and 56k modem card) has never given me any trouble in Linux.

          But now I can leave that card at home when traveling, since the LTwindom drivers seem to work quite well on my laptop. The only glitch is that there is no sound output, but I can handle that.
    • if there is some motivation to offer a bounty like this? Either he has money to give away (and this is certainly a worthy cause), or he's looking for a cheap way to get the code to make his employer's winmodem Linux-compatible and expand the market for it...

      Note that the generic code he asks for does not make a complete modem program -- there is also going to have to be some hardware specific code. If you can't get the manufacturer's specs, that will be quite difficult, but to the guys that built the hardware, it's the easy part.

      • Re:Motivation? (Score:2, Informative)

        by apilosov ( 1810 )
        Hardware-specific code is actually out there for many devices. At any case, reverse-engineering of each piece of hardware can be done later once this is completed.

        No, I am not related to any manufacturer of any winmodem-related device.

  • Mirror of Text (Score:2, Informative)

    by (startx) ( 37027 )
    I know, whore, whatever. I figured I'd mirror the text before the site goes down.

    Begin Mirror

    Well, I had almost no replies to the original post, lets see if
    quadrupling bounty will help any! The bounty is now 20000$.

    Please, if you are interested, contact me.

    Also note that I'm interested in either completion of Fabrice Bellard's
    code (on http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/linmodem.html) or Jamie Lokier's
    code (on http://www.tantalophile.demon.co.uk/)

    Hi,

    I'm interested in completion of Fabrice Bellard or Jamie Lokier's GPL'd
    softmodem code. I'm willing to place a 20000$ bounty on this project. If
    you are interested in picking this bounty, please contact me for further
    details.

    Notes:
    * Your code will be placed under GPL
    * Code must not rely on DSP, pure C required.
    * You MUST have background in signal processing
    * You are free to reuse other GPL'd software (virtual UART and LAP/M are
    ones that are already implemented in other software).
    * Pieces needed to finish:
    a) v.32/v.32bis modulation/demodulation
    b) full v.34 negotiation (modulation/demodulation is done)
    c) analog part of v.90 and v.90 negotiation
    d) virtual UART
    e) v.8 negotiation of all of the above
    f) v.42bis/LAPM and MNP5 (and v.42 negotiation)
    g) Hayes-like AT commands/registers (integrated with all of above)

    I will provide the relevant ITU specs, test hardware, and specs for
    testing.

    If you think the bounty is inadequate, I'm willing to talk about price.

    -alex

    End Mirror

    (slightly modified to pass /. lameness filters.)

    • Code must not rely on DSP, pure C required.

      So let me get this straight: If the modem is an HCF modem (i.e. has its own DSP) you aren't allowed to use it. In other words, the guy is putting up $20k for someone to write a universal HSP driver. Interesting notion.

      I'm sure there's v.34 code available. v.90 may be a little trickier. The neat part about this is that you should (in theory) be able to use your soundcard and a part-68 interface for a modem if this is pulled off.

      • OT, I know, but this:

        The neat part about this is that you should (in theory) be able to use your soundcard and a part-68 interface for a modem if this is pulled off.

        reminded me of a problem I had with my first computer where my sound stopped working and my modem got flaky at the same time. It turned out that my modem had spontaneously reinstalled itself as a sound card, replacing my existing sound card. I could pick up any phone in the house and hear whatever was supposed to be going to my speakers.

        I got it fixed, but I never figured out how it happened. Ah, the joys of Windows...

        The bright side, of course, is that was the event that first got me to muck about with drivers. The rest, as they say, is history!

      • If the modem is an HCF modem (i.e. has its own DSP) you aren't allowed to use it.

        Can someone explain how this is done? Do most softmodems have a mode where they can just get/send a digitized version of the analog data to digital buffers? And if they do , do have any of these modems have documentation for this?

        Yes i know this is inefficient and there are legal concerns, but is this even useful for MY rockwell hcf modem?
    • But linmodems.org runs Linux. Why would it go down??
      -russ
  • If this trend continues, and we have enough generous donors, we might end up having a whole lot of very interesting stuff out really really soon...
    • ...as long as it's given out for Free, as in beer, and is Free as in speech...

      Cheers...

    • One huge problem with open source is that there just aren't enough funds to pay the coders.

      The GPL needs just a little bit of capitalism in order to raise some capital to pay for vital projects. The reason why nobody uses Linux is not because MS has them brainwashed, or because they just haven't tried it or whatnot.

      It's because in real life, Linux just plain sucks for the average computer user. Maybe with a little funding, Linux could suck less.
      • The reason why nobody uses Linux...

        Except, of course, that a metric fuckload of people do use Linux, and other free or open source software, every day. Hell, you used Slashcode to send your message, and you're using it to read this one now.

        And free/open source software has nothing to do with communism.

        • > > The reason why nobody uses Linux...
          > Except, of course, that a metric fuckload of people do use
          > Linux, and other free or open source software, every day.

          You literally can't give it away for free, but there's nothing wrong with it? Someone's in denial.

          Linux is good for what it does, but it sucks for the AVERAGE USER. You are not probably not an average user. Find one and try to get them to use Linux.

          > Hell,
          > you used Slashcode to send your message, and
          > you're using it to read this one now.

          Did I say all Open Source sucks? No. I use the Gimp for windows and...well, it sucks. But there are Open Source projects out there that are good.

          What I'm saying is that with proper funds the programs would be better because companies or organizations could actually pay the people who work on it.

          > And free/open source software has nothing to do with communism.

          Comparing Open Source to the business model is remarkably similar to comparing communism to capitalism.

          • No. I use the Gimp for windows and...well, it sucks.

            What kind of problems are you having with GIMP 1.2 for Win32? If you don't want to discuss them here, send me private email at

            slash @t pineight dt 8m dt com
            (Ever noticed the increase in +2 posts recently? The "No Score +1 Bonus" checkbox isn't working at all.)

          • Note to slashdot: UI == OS (Score:2, Insightful)

            by a9 ( 458108 )
            Darnit guys. Find an average computer user and start talking to the guy. Every time there's a Linux vs Windows debate, everyone on the Linux team tends to start talking about how good the kernel is or whatever.

            Who cares how good the kernel is if the UI blows? Or if you can never install the darn thing? Linux has great potential, the only problem is that nobody cares about tweaking a version so that people other than the coders can enjoy it.

            "Nobody uses Linux because MS has a monopoly." BS on a stick buddy. People install programs and games on their computers. If Linux didn't blow for home use by average people, more people would be installing it on their computers the same way they install other programs.

            > Do you honestly think Linux is any harder to
            > use than Windows? You really musn't know a lot
            > about Linux. Much simpler and easier to use
            > than Windows.

            Manually mounting your drives before you use them is easier than automounting. Yep. Oh wait, that problem got fixed...years after it was fixed in windows.

            It only took me six hours to install my copy of Linux! Ohayo!

            Oh look, the GUI doesn't work...

            Cool! By default it's butt ugly!

            Oh boy! Oh boy! I have to drop to the command line to do anything remotely usefull!

            > But the opposite is not true. Can you name me
            > one decent closed-source typesetting engine to
            > rival LaTeX? How about a closed-source browser
            > to rival Galeon? How about a closed-source
            > mailer to rival mutt? Can't be done.

            Er...name an open source Photoshop. Open source Word. Open source Excel. Open source Quake3.

            And if you say "Staroffice" or "Gimp" I hope a business user or graphics designer smacks you.

            > What difference would it make? Linux is good
            > enough as it is.

            Except that it sucks, of course.

            > All that needs to be done is to make transition
            > easier, i.e. removing barriers such as MS-
            > Office document formats, Ms-only hardware, MS-
            > only software etc. The only reason MS is more
            > succesful is because it was here first.

            All that needs to be done is to find out why Linux sucks and fix the frizzgikin problems.

            MS is partially successful because they were there first, but they also find out what the customer wants and gives it to them. The Linux team could learn a lot from them.

            > Sorry to disappoint you, but Open Source is
            > irrelevent to communism or capitalism.

            Except that it's relevant. Capitalism is forced to give the consumer what they want (sort of...). Communism can sit on it's @$$ and wait in bread lines. Microsoft must give the customer more or less what they want, or they will die out. Linux is not bound by that restriction. Also, M$ has enough money to pay it's programmers. If there was open competition in the OS industry we'd see some real innovation.

            > I think for absolutely ignorant computer users
            > there will be no problems with Unix/KDE. These
            > users couldn't install Unix, or Windows, or any
            > software. They can click on their webbrowser
            > and click OK and read their email and use a
            > word processor. Hardware support isn't an issue
            > as they can't install hardware anyway. IMO Most
            > users are like this and Linux is perfectly
            > suited.

            Darnit freakin darnit. Find a computer user different than you and TALK TO THE DAM GUY! Not all people who don't want to install Linux are complete idiots. They just don't want to deal with the hassle. Think of it this way: Imaging you buy a car and it stalls as you drive it out. In order to start it up again, you have to press twenty levers in a certain manner. Because of this you're late to work and you get fired. Then the engine explodes. This is what Linux looks like to many normal computer users. Normal computer users don't use the computer because they like fixing problems. They use it to accomplish a goal. The computer is a tool. They don't want the tool to sit there and break, they want it to be transparent so they can do their work.

            Suggestion: Talk to:
            -a computer newbie.
            -a business computer user.
            -a graphics designer.
            -a gamer.

            Find out what they're like. Linux could meet their needs if only the Linux community realized that the needs existed.

            > For expert computer users a Unix wins over
            > windows for remote administration and
            > stability. Windows may win in the future but I
            > doubt it.

            Unix: better as server/programming.
            Windows: better at gaming/newbies/home use.
            Macintosh: better at graphics.

            With a few changes, Linux could rock at home use.

            > What kind of problems are you having with GIMP
            > 1.2 for Win32?

            The user-interface was designed by either a sadist or a masochist. Or both. Aside from that it's a pretty good program, despite the occaisional glitch and crash.

            Note:

            The reason why I'm so pissed with Linux is, ironically, because it's so good. It IS an excellent operating system...the only problem is that the people designing it either don't know or don't care about what normal computer users want. Microsoft does. That's why they're kicking Linux's @$$ on the desktop. Having a monopoly doesn't hurt too.

            Aside from that, I've been trying to get the GUI working properly for the past two freaking years. I installed mandrake n.n and everything seemed ok...until I saw that by default it couldn't read windows drives. At this point I was just so disgusted at the shortsightedness of whoever designed the darn thing that I installed cygwin under windows and used that to do most of the work. Bleah. At one point in my life I was a Linux zealot...but then I found out what Linux was really like. Now I try to admit it's good points and point out it's flaws. At the current point in time, Linux truly does suck for the average user.

            Hint to Linux designers: talk to people who are NOT computer programmers. Talk to newbies. Talk to graphics designers. Talk to gamers. Find out what they want in an operating system. Don't assume that everyone who doesn't use Linux does so because they are at fault. They aren't - Linux is. Don't assume that everyone who hates Linux because they can't get it to work or because it doesn't work they way they expect it to is an idiot. They're not. Whoever designed the thing is an idiot for not designing it properly. And the sooner people admit that, the sooner they'll start fixing the problems. And the sooner Linux will stop sucking.

            Hooboy. Look at that karma plummet.
  • Wouldn't this require some other name, when (if) they ar no longer "Win only" modems? Does anyone have any ideas? I cannot offer any reward though ;)
  • As far as I can see this is for analouge modems only. Is this still so intensively needed that it is woth that amount of money?
    • In the great-scheme-of-things its very useful because LOTS of laptops use winmodems, and when you're 'on the go' you don't always have access to a nice ethernet-terminated connection.

      As to why it is worth $20,000 to this guy personally..I have no idea?
    • Absolutely!

      Not everyone has access to broadband. I would guess it's about 50-50, and of those that could get it, most have no need for it, certainly not at $50/month. How many of them use Linux? Probably not many, and it's going to stay that way if they can't get their modems to work. There are also plenty of Linux-users who are still modem-bound, and real modems are expensive, and not that easy to find in the 56kbps variety. When you can find one, you're looking at $70 vs $20 for a winmodem.

      Another thing somebody mentioned was laptops, which tend to come with built-in winmodems.

      It comes down to this; if you bought a computer in the last 2 years, laptop or desktop, it came with a winmodem. Most people hate it when you tell them they need to buy more hardware before they can do what they want to do. They want everything to work out of the box. Therefore, real winmodem support is absolutely essential for Linux's future on the desktop.

      If this guy has a bunch of people working in the field on laptops, it could easily be worth $20k to his company, especially if it means breaking free of the Windows upgrade cycle, which would likely cost them a lot more than $20k over the life of those laptops.

  • There is no mention of why, is this pure philantropy, or is there some hidden benefit for Alex here?

    Just curious, if I had the time and inclination to learn grungy DSP processing in C it'd be an interesting challenge :)

  • high price for a modem (Score:3, Interesting)

    by htmlboy ( 31265 ) on Monday November 19, 2001 @06:00AM (#2583841)
    seems to me that $20,000 is an awful lot to pay for the ability to reliably run softmodems in linux...almost like we're trying to beat the corporations more than accomplishing the goal.

    with the prevalence of high speed connections these days, i find it odd that we're seeing a big surge for a (slowly) dying technology. linux users tend to be people who value their connection enough to get dsl or a cable modem.

    i guess my observations of the current state of technology are a bit skewed by living in a college town where every apartment has "T1 Ethernet" (ha), so i'd be interested in hearing what others think about the worth of modem development.

    • Re:high price for a modem (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Kraft ( 253059 ) on Monday November 19, 2001 @06:09AM (#2583864) Homepage
      think laptops...

      I have a thinkpad t21, and from what I have read, one of the common linux problems with this laptop is bad modem support. As I use this machine on the road from time to time, I want that modem to work (hotels, friends house etc.) and if it doesn't it will be a deterrent to install linux.

      I do think you are right in suposing that many linux fans are early adopters, but what I find interesting is the possibility of more "regular" users switching to linux, because of proper hardware support and thus: ease of use.

      • Don't give up on your T21 so quickly; odds are pretty good that it will work fine. I have a T21 whose modem I've used under Linux in Hong Kong, France, Germany and many places in the U.S.

        There is a possibility that your T21 has a modem which Linux does not have kernel support for. If you have a Lucent modem or an MWave modem you'll have no troubles, but I believe there is another modem in some T21s.

        Of course, there is another option that is guaranteed to work very well: Spend $100 on a decent PCMCIA modem and never worry about it again.

    • Re:high price for a modem (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Masa ( 74401 )
      I'm a Linux user and until now I had no way to get any other kind of connection to my Linux box than modem (now I finally was able to subscribe a cable modem connection). I had to pay three times more compared to Winmodems to get a fully functional external V.90 modem.

      I'm a poor university student and every penny counts. I cannot afford to *DSL connection or any other kind of high-speed connection. Also until resently it was techincally impossible to get cable modem to my apartment. So modem was the only reasonable way to get connected. And for student it is rather tempting to by cheap Winmodem rather that the real one.

      And now to the point... First of all: there is still places where it is difficult/expensive/impossible to have *DSL or cable modem connections. Second: there always is a (large) group of people who want to have an Internet access but even cheapest REAL modem is too expensive. Winmodem is dirty cheap alternative but it limits user to Windows environment. That's why it's quite important to have support for cheap "hard"ware under Linux. After all, one reason to have Linux installed is the cheap price.

      Yes, I'm the stupid one, who first bought a Winmodem and was tied to Windows platform before I had a chance to buy a real piece of hardware.
    • Modems are dying only to the /. community.

      Think about it, worldwide, there are actually VERY few broadband home connections. Modems are still far and away the most common means for accessing the internet. So if there is ever going to be a hope for getting linux on the desktop, it WILL need good softmodem support.

      Besides, think of how many OEM machines in the last 5 years came with v.90 winmodems standard. The number is pretty damn high. You won't win too many converts by telling them that the first thing they need to do is buy a new modem...
    • with the prevalence of high speed connections these days, i find it odd that we're seeing a big surge for a (slowly) dying technology. linux users tend to be people who value their connection enough to get dsl or a cable modem.

      I think I can almost agree with you. Personally I believe that the best way to do is simply not to mess with winmodems. Think about it, you need a realtime thread to run the code to get good performance (or even to stay connected! in some cases anyway) and that will interfere with the operation of your computer system in a way no winmodem does with windows, simply because you are not using the DSP. As others have pointed out, using the DSP is infeasible because everyone has a different DSP and you'd have to write code for all of them. Of course, this is not impossible, but you'd need to spend more than $20k to get it, and he doesn't want it to be through DSP methods anyway.

      My feelings, however, are that we should be supporting companies who develop drivers for their products on linux, even if they're not open source. Also, if you want a cheap non-winmodem, you can pick up used 33.6Kbps external modems for very cheap ($20 or so.) Sure, they're not the latest greatest fastest thing, but anyone trying to do anything which requires bandwidth with a modem of any sort is in for a nasty surprise anyway.

      Supposedly some cellphone companies are now offering free unlimited internet access from their phones now (at modem speeds) via IR and such. So anyone can get a cheap connection anywhere; Plans with those companies begin at $30/mo with all the night and weekend minutes you can eat, plus free calls in your three-state area or whatever, so it's your phone and your ISP and the price starts to look reasonable. DSL and Cable begin at $40 ($30 for cable modem access if you already have cable, in my area) per month and the coverage areas are growing rapidly. Also, the satellite service (which the bastards are calling DSL, ostensibly for digital satellite link - don't they realize how bad they need a foot up their @ss for that one?) is pretty cheap, though I don't recall how cheap, and faster than ISDN anyway, although it has higher latency.

      So basically, there's nowhere you can't get broadband of some sort. If you really need a modem link, you can always get a used modem, slightly slower (Most people in the boonies only get 38K or so connections anyway (when they're lucky), I usually got 31.2 out of my 33.6 modem, which is close enough) but good enough to get the basics done, download drivers and such (except nvidia's) and basically get things done. Email, light web surfing, et cetera. I used to have a UUCP feed with five groups on a 9600 baud modem, but times have changed.

      So I think that supporting this technology which was lame to begin with is, of course, lame. If your foundation is stupidity, then your house will be idiotic.

      P.S. Please pardon my nested parens. Then again, most of you will probably have no problem with them...

    • seems to me that $20,000 is an awful lot to pay for the ability to reliably run softmodems in linux ... with the prevalence of high speed connections these days

      Not all areas have high-speed connections (on the order of 200 kbps or more), especially rural areas. Would you rather have your company pitch in $20,000 to fund development of portable softmodem code for its employees' laptops or pay $200,000 per employee to move their families [evilpigeon.net] to an area where consumer broadband is available?

  • Isn't there anyone offering a bounty for writing a program that would crash some OS :-)

  • Reasons why this would be interesting! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by denisb ( 411264 ) <denis@denisBALDWIN.no minus author> on Monday November 19, 2001 @06:06AM (#2583854) Homepage
    Can't people figure out the following reasons for such a project being interesting ?

    - Low cost internet station for places out of reach of xDSL / cable modem connections.
    - Viable internet connection for legacy hardware / second hand hardware
    - Excellent solution for development countries where xDSL is faar away yet.

    The keywords here are LOW and COST.. Did you ever consider that Linux and second hand hardware might be the ultimate combination for places where they don't have as much cash as yourselves ?

    d9s
    • Analog modem emulation over ISDN. Indeed, the complicated part of the driver is emulating the DSP with its signal processing algorithms, whereas actually interfacing to the device is the easy part. Such an analog-over-isdn driver could be interesting in the following situations:
      • You occasionnally connect to serveral providers, some analog, some isdn, and you don't want to keep around both an ISDN card and an analog modem.
      • You run a small co-op ISP, and want to offer 56K access. As you probably know, end-user 56K modems only work for the client side, not for the ISP side. ISPs need different equipment, which is much more expensive, and only makes sense for large commercial ISPs. However, with ISDN, it could easily be emulated, if there was such as softmodem driver around
      • Actually, the possibility of running analog modem protocol over ISDN would be an excellent testing platform for softmodem developpers: indeed, anybody good enough to write a softmodem driver would probably be to smart to have a real winmodem lying around. Which means he would have to buy one specifically for the purpose of writing this driver. With ISDN, he can use equipment which he probably already has.
  • I may be reading it wrong, but if you don't have a formal background in DSP you can't claim the bounty. Is it just me or this unfair?

    • Well, it's not really unfair, as a formal background in digital signal processing is unarguably required to be a serious developer of this type of code.

  • You MUST have background in signal processing


    So if somebody WITHOUT background in signal processing will write the working code he will be not eligible for the award?

    • Re:restrictions? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by krokodil ( 110356 ) on Monday November 19, 2001 @06:22AM (#2583887) Homepage
      You MUST have background in signal processing

      Dear Mr. Torvalds,

      We could not permit your so-called "operating system" to use GNU license because you do not have proven experience in the operating system design and your background is not sufficient. In order to satisfy our customers,
      and maintain high project code quiality, we accept contributions only from candidates who have experience in the particular area and passed interview with some of our managers.

      (signed)
      Free Software Foundaiton
      • Sorry, to clarify: This particular restriction is to make sure the code will be developed in foreseeable future.

        This is not a toy project. The knowledge needed to complete it is significant. I wouldn't expect someone who already HAD implemented a modem, but I expect someone who knows what signal processing is all about.

        I'm sure that Linus had some knowledge of OS concepts when he started writing Linux, by that, I mean knowledge of things like design of scheduler, message passing, etc, etc.

        In the same way, I expect that people who would develop this code would have knowledge of filter design (FIR, etc), and
    • So if somebody WITHOUT background in signal processing will write the working code...

      ... Perhaps by an infinite number of moneys pound away at an infinite number of typewriters....

      • Maybe someone wants to learn? Who else would this bounty motivate? Not a seasoned DSP coder making much more than this in there day job.

        I think this term of the bounty is probably its major flaw.
    • So if somebody WITHOUT background in signal processing will write the working code he will be not eligible for the award?

      No, what he's saying is someone WITHOUT background in DSP will NOT be able to write the driver, as you must have intimate knowledge of DSP in order to write the driver in the first place.

  • Bounty won't matter much. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zensonic ( 82242 ) on Monday November 19, 2001 @06:20AM (#2583884) Homepage
    Regardless of the coolness factor of this bounty, the fact still remain: A GPLed softmodem driver still requires certification by the telephone companies before any device is legally connected to the telephone network using the driver.

    My guesstimate are that it's much more difficult to obtain certifactions for the driver around the globe than it is to write the driver. The telephone companies are rather picky about what the allow onto their networks

  • 1 universal driver??? (Score:4, Informative)

    by HeUnique ( 187 ) <hetz-home AT cobol2java DOT com> on Monday November 19, 2001 @06:20AM (#2583885) Homepage
    Have you actually looked at the drivers available in linmodems.org? look for example at the Cirrus Logic driver and look at the IBM's MWave driver - they have some common goal - they're emulating V34 and V90 protocols for example - but each chip is doing this TOTALLY differently, try to play a bit with the binary only ltmodem to see what I mean...

    A unified driver won't work here since almost each DSP chip which is a WinModem is totally different from others - look at the HSF modems DSP chips (conexant) VS. Lucent WinModem DSP chips VS Cirrus Logic VS TI's DSP chip...

    Or I might didn't understand you well Alex, could you give more details? You also didn't give any details about what do u offer for a group of programmers - who will get what...
  • I mean, sure you got a modem for $10, but that modem turned your $1000 computer into an old 386 for any tasks beside running the modem driver.

    Its explictly required that the driver in question doesn't rely on DSP code which then translates the project into:

    Bounty $20000 for developing an application that will bring your computer to a crawl.
    • You'll worry about performance when it's working, silly.

      Besides even with a low-end processor by today's standards, the "crawling" will be like below 10% CPU usage.

      Oh, and if it's still too slow, someone may just optimize the code with MMX kind of stuff. But you can't optimize what does'nt exist. And you should'nt obsess about optimizing before you have something actually working.
      • I'm posting this from a laptop right now that's running Sawfish, GNOME, Nautilus, Galeon, etc. And is also using a Winmodem.

        `top' tells me my system is 97.2% idle.

        The "CPU suck factor" of Winmodems has been grossly exaggerated.

    • Re:Stay away from this path! (Score:4, Funny)

      by JediTrainer ( 314273 ) on Monday November 19, 2001 @09:30AM (#2584201)
      Bounty $20000 for developing an application that will bring your computer to a crawl.

      AFAIK nobody suggested that the driver has to be written in Java

      disclosure: I AM a Java developer and I was just being sarcastic - no flames please

  • Bountys - a great Way to fund development of OSS (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tempmpi ( 233132 ) on Monday November 19, 2001 @06:35AM (#2583915)
    I think that this bounty thing could maybe be a really good way to fund the development of opensource software.
    I think it is very nice that Alex Pilosov supplies the money for this, but there could have been a better way to get the money for bountys like this one. I think there are a lot more than 20000 people that run linux on a notebook with a softmodem and like to have a piece of the software like this. If they would all have spend a dollar, this would have been a mucher nicer method of raising the money for a bounty like this.
    I want a webpage that is a combination of PayPal, freshmeat and sourceforge. Where users could donate money to a bounty for a project they choose. If no one is able to reach the goal that is needed for the bounty the users get their money back.
    • Bounties are a TERRIBLE way to fund development of software.

      No serious developer is going to go after a bounty, because you only have a 1/N chance of getting the prize if there are N other contenders. The person who finishes first is going to be the one who cuts the most corners and spends the least amount of time on design and documentation, so you'll end up rewarding the person who can produces the crappiest software to a minimum standard faster than anyone else!

      The competitive aspect also makes people keep their work secret, preventing peer review and feedback.

      Sheesh, if someone has $20,000 to spend on software development they should just HIRE a skilled person who will get the job done properly. It's not like there's a shortage of skilled software developers at the moment! They don't even have to be a free software developer because if you're hiring them you call the shots and choose whatever license you want.

      • "so you'll end up rewarding the person who can produces the crappiest software to a minimum standard faster than anyone else! "

        Isn't that how most commercial software is created??! - I think that once complete, the software should be vetted by a third party, who can establish if the program is written to pre-agreed standards. If a program that bairly meets the spec, is released then the chances are that the authors wont see a dime.

      • You're right. The only type of person I can imagine being motivated by this bounty is someone doing it for fun, or who wants to learn. Most probably NOT someone who "MUST have signal processing experience" (as stated in the announcement), but perhaps someone who wants to learn...

        I don't think you'll be able to hire someone with signal processing experience for $20,000. Not if the project is going to take more than a couple of months, in which case, why hasn't it already been done?

    • Re:Bountys - a great Way to fund development of OS (Score:5, Interesting)

      by GigsVT ( 208848 ) on Monday November 19, 2001 @10:09AM (#2584330) Journal
      No one has heard of

      linuxfund.org

      ?

  • Patents on modem algorithms? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dido ( 9125 ) <dido&imperium,ph> on Monday November 19, 2001 @06:39AM (#2583924)

    I'm just wondering if perhaps someone has patented the algorithms used to drive these soft modems. A Free Software implementation of a soft modem driver will thus be in violation of the patent then. As far as I can tell the ITU [itu.int], the standards body that defines these modem standards, allows what the W3C calls RAND licensing, as they state in patent policy [itu.int] (excerpt):

    2 If an ITU-T Recommendation is developed and such information as referred to in paragraph 1 [patents and other intellectual property claims], three different situations may arise:

    2.1 The patent holder waives his rights; hence, the Recommendation is freely accessible to everybody, subject to no particular conditions, no royalties are due, etc.

    2.2 The patent holder is not prepared to waive his rights but would be willing to negotiate licenses with other parties on a non-discriminatory basis on reasonable terms and conditions. Such negotiations are left to the parties concerned and are performed outside the ITU-T. [emphasis mine]

    2.3 The patent holder is not willing to comply with the provisions of either paragraph 2.1 or paragraph 2.2; in such case, no Recommendation can be established.

    It's paragraph 2.2 that worries me. If any patents exist on the modem standards implemented by soft modems that are thus RAND-licensable, any GPL implementation is impossible. I believe some of the compression algorithms used in some of the modem standards are already known to be patented, such as the infamous LZW compression algorithm held by Unisys that has caused the huge flap over GIF's a couple of years back.

    • Licensing too. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Karpe ( 1147 )
      Not only you are right, but also any communication equipment connected to the phone network must be licensed by the local communications agency. This happens in many countries. Most of them will never bother to go after people connecting linmodems on the phone network, but some countries are very rigid in this control. This licensing, or approvement, must apply to the communication equipment as a whole. You can't license only the hardware part of software modems, since many times is the software that will decide the line levels to be used. (In Lucent winmodems, these levels are selected via AT commands, when you select the country you are in. This is done via software). This process is necessary to avoid people connecting devices to the phone network that could ruin the network.

      So, in short, even if we don't worry with the patent issues of v.xx, we still have to worry on licensing the linmodem software, but since free software can always be modified, there will always have a non-approved version of it, which can cause legal problems.
    • To my knowledge, there are no patents that would hinder this particular development.

      Notwithstanding this, there ARE patents in the general area:

      SMLink has bunch of patents, but they are all (again, to my knowledge) in hardware-chipset area, not in driver area.
      PCTel also has patents in the same area.

      Rockwell and Agere have patents in DSP-modem area.

      There are patents for the algorithms involved in v.34 and v.90, however, I believe they all can be either avoided (by implementing differently), or denied by presenting prior art, however, they are the biggest threat.

      These patents are owned by PCTel and SMLink. I'm still in process how to avoid them.

  • Winmodem hardware compatibility (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Novus ( 182265 ) on Monday November 19, 2001 @07:39AM (#2583998)
    If this is successfully completed, we'll have a completely universal driver for any kind of winmodem without any proprietary code which result in all sorts of kernel version problems.

    As far as I can tell, this project doesn't solve the problem of winmodem manufacturers not releasing hardware specs. In other words, you'd have a driver that can tell a DAC/ADC driver what to squirt down the line and work out what the stuff that comes back means, but you still wouldn't be able to use the actual winmodem; you'd have to use a DAC/ADC for which you have drivers. This means either buying a supported modem or a separate DAC, or trying to figure out how to drive the winmodem's DAC and ADC directly.

    Of course, persuading manufacturers to release one or two port adresses and a little info on how to use them may be easier than getting them to release full Linux drivers or complete DSP specs. Likewise, working out how to access the DAC/ADC on a winmodem is probably easier than trying to figure out its DSP (although the DAC/ADC may be only accessible to the DSP, which may make things hairy).

  • PCMCIA modems for under $20 (Score:4, Informative)

    by vscjoe ( 537452 ) on Monday November 19, 2001 @08:21AM (#2584046)
    Check pricewatch.com: you can get PCI modems for under $15, PCMCIA modems for under $20, an external USB modem goes for under $25, and an external serial port modem goes for under $30. Those kinds of modems usually conform to standard interfaces and make minimal use of the CPU (other than for the serial interrupts, of course).

    WinModems, in contrast, are just a big hassle: they consume oodles of CPU time, they have non-standard drivers, and you have to worry about them with every OS. If your laptop has one built-in, complain to its manufacturer (it probably would have cost nothing to add a real modem) and don't bother using it.

    • Now, first of all I should say that I agree a winmodem driver for linux is a good idea. But, just because it is a good idea to have such a driver does not mean you should use one yourself.

      This is much like the situation with web pages and high-end monitors -- yes, of course web pages should be designed to be accessible on small monitors, but you yourself will be much happier with a large monitor.

      Anyone who complains that "real" modems are too expensive doesn't know how to buy from pricewatch. On any given day, a search for "external serial modem" will return a bunch of real modems for under $30. To put this in perspective, a phone line plus an ISP account usually costs over $30 for a single month!

      The benefits of a real modem are well worth the price. A year ago I bought an external serial modem from pricewatch for $30 (plus 5 shipping). This thing gets me ~50k throughput, much better latency than a winmodem, and works on either a desktop or a laptop (it's smaller than a deck of cards, and it's powered from the PS/2 port, not the wall outlet). Linux support is a nice bonus, but, honestly, a real modem like this is worth it even if you use windows only.

      In summary, a linux winmodem driver is a worthy thing for the masses, but you deserve better than that.

    • PCMCIA modems for under $20

      Each of which is, you guessed it, a Winmodem! Believe it or not, most PCMCIA modems ARE Winmodems. I found this unfortunate fact while shopping for a new modem for my laptop recently, at the local CompUSA, 8 out of 9 cards were Winmodems - the one hardware based modem was over $100.

      Even generic, no-name PCMCIA hardware-based modems seem to be at least $50 or so.

  • Who pays the lawyers? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Florian Weimer ( 88405 ) <fw@deneb.enyo.de> on Monday November 19, 2001 @09:07AM (#2584157) Homepage
    I doubt you can implement those ITU standards without infringing on a couple of patents (at least a few companies will claim infringement as soon as you publish the code).

    If you have to pay the lawyers from your $20,000, this doesn't appear to be a fair deal.

  • Screw Microsoft and promote the uptake of Linux (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Monday November 19, 2001 @09:08AM (#2584158)

    I've often thought that it is in many companies interests to find ways to screw over Microsoft, even in ways that are apparently not directly beneficial to them. I've always thought that this is probably one of the main motivating factors behind openoffice.org - it might not generate much profit for Sun, but it has the potential to kick Microsoft where it hurts, as the cream of their profits come from Office. Similarly with IBM's support and nurturing of SUSE, Mandrake and Redhat.

    Of course there many be companies that have identified places they want to kick Microsoft but don't want to do it publicly. Take Intel for instance - despite their long-term relationship with Microsoft I'm sure they would prefer to drive sales of their processors by releasing open source developers toolkits that exploit new features they add to their processors. So its in their interest to promote the uptake of Linux, but without risking the wrath of Bill. This is one way they could do it - give bounties via a third party for development that they see as strategic for the wider uptake of Linux.

    And not just Intel - there are many other companies that have the motivation to do this type of thing but don't want attention drawn their way.

  • How do we know that this is genuine? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HuskyDog ( 143220 ) on Monday November 19, 2001 @09:27AM (#2584193) Homepage
    I don't want to be rude, but how do we know that this guy will produce the money? Can anyone we trust vouch for him?

    Perhaps if he placed a deposit with some trusted third party (Mad Dog, Eric Raymond etc) people might be happier to devote the time.

  • Why require Compression?? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by A Commentor ( 459578 ) on Monday November 19, 2001 @09:52AM (#2584260) Homepage

    V.42bis and MNP5 should be optional.

    As long as the software is able to properly negotiate no compression with the other modem, requiring Compression adds a substanial amount of work that can be post-poned or have another person work on it.

  • Isn't motivation obvious? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AndyBarrow ( 62701 ) on Monday November 19, 2001 @10:20AM (#2584375) Homepage
    I would think that the motivation for something like this would be obvious. For a company to develop drivers, either for their own hardware or someone elses, would be WAY more than $20,000. That's a couple of months of contract time for one person, if you are lucky.

    This way, they get the drivers they want, the OSS community gets another wrench for the toolbox, and everybody wins.

    Why look a gift horse in the mouth, folks? Get coding!

  • Some facts about software modems (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jamie Lokier ( 104820 ) on Monday November 19, 2001 @12:13PM (#2584995) Homepage

    Interesting; I did not see this second message from Alex. Have I been unsubscribed from the list over the weekend, I wonder?

    I'm going to answer a few questions that have been raised, and a few that haven't.

    Is anybody working on the code?

    Fabrice started first. Unfortunately, he has been quiet for a very long time, and I have no idea if Fabrice has done further work on the modem code. I hope he is still well and healthy.

    Meanwhile, I have been secretly still working on my code base (that's the one at tantalophile) all this time. It has been an on and off affair, and I've found it difficult to find the time, energy or focus what with the day job and other projects. I keep foolishly trying to improve on the standard algorithms ;-) Nevertheless, bugs have been fixed, features added, tests done, signals are processed better than ever and I have a nice set of graphs showing simulated error performance of the V.34 core under various conditions.

    In other words, there's a long way to go and please, nobody hold their breath, but there has been substantial progress and it is not on the tantalophile web site. So don't slashdot it, thanks :-) I'm making no promises about when my new material will appear, but I do promise it will be announced on the linmodems mailing list.

    About the bounty

    It's a bit of a nice surprise to see that offered. I'll be contacting Alex, but to be honest I am motivated to complete the project anyway. I don't want funding to dictate the goals of the project (which should be educational and of high quality, IMHO, as well as functional), although some influence would be understandable. It is likely to make a difference to the schedule though.

    Legal clarification and/or commercially backed negotiation on the patent issue would be invaluable, and help with testing is also very valuable.

    I didn't respond to the original $5000 request because it is not a lot of money. Considering the large amount of time, effort and to some extent resources already spent on the project, as an estimate for the remaining work, I would certainly not accept a commercial contract at that sort of rate. $20000 is rather more interesting, but I think Alex's request for V.90 is unrealistic if he wants it on a short timescale.

    One thing that would be a bit upsetting is if all my work were quickly overshadowed by someone else, suddenly motivated by cash, throwing something together. But I cannot complain as I haven't exactly been speeding ahead or keeping with the community on this. I know how the Hurd feels ;-)

    Standards compliance, approval, and "homologation"

    This is quite hard, because anyone can modify the code and thereby break any certification of the code.

    Different countries have different standards. There are differences in the energy that can be emitted, both the peak instantaneous energy and a longer term average are limited. And you don't always want to max out the energy anyway, as you're avoiding distortion.

    The relationship between voltage and current is not the same everywhere. Dialing tones, engaged tones and so on vary. V.90 coding varies because the USA operates at a lower digital bit rate than most of Europe.

    Some people have said that it is the hardware which is subject to regulation. This is not true. I believe there is a certain certification level for the hardware itself, for avoiding excessive energy input, making sure the hardware doesn't go up in flames when receiving the 100V ring pulses or a lightning bolt, that the impedance is matched, and so on.

    However, it is (theoretically) necessary to certify the software as well for many reasons. A good example: by modifying the software, you can transmit more energy on a USA telephone line, using a USA modem, than is permitted by federal regulations. That excessive energy is considered to potentially interfere with other people's telephone calls. So, you do have to get the software right.

    Fortunately we have a good example of certification in the Linux kernel. Some versions of the Linux ISDN code are certified for use on the German telephone networks, I believe. The source code is checksummed. I note with interest that it's the source that's certified, and not the binary (so the beurocracy is ignoring bugs in the compiler or the rest of the kernel).

    For myself, I am very keen to write code which certainly does conform to all the known requirements. I don't feel comfortable hacking together some "it seems to work" code of this kind and releasing it like that. It's partly a reputation thing, and partly a responsibility thing.

    On patents

    Yes, there are many patents. Unfortunately the detailed patent situation is unknown. It is possible that the patents don't apply to software implementations in most countries, but we don't know to what extent and where each patent applies.

    We don't even know which patents apply! However, there is an online list at the ITU which may be helpful.

    This is hopefully an area in which Alex Pilosov and his (possibly) commercial backing can help in a big way.

    I am of the opinion that users have, in general, already paid for their modems and so they should already have permission to use the techniques. It seems to be the case that software modem drivers for Windows are downloaded and installed with no attention paid to these matters, so it should not be any more of an issue for Free Software. It would be good to know for sure.

    The developing world

    Telephone line driver chips are cheap! For the developing world, getting an internet connection over crappy copper would be a wonderful achievement, and with full access to a software modem, you could cobble the modems together from parts.

    For this reason I think it is important that the softmodem works well over poor lines as well as good ones. And yes, I would love to code "workarounds" for when the standard algorithms don't perform well on Nepalese copper lines, or wherever. It would have to be a special variant of the code, for the regulatory reasons stated earlier, but it's a lovely thought.

    Is it still worth writing a software modem in order to use "winmodems" on Linux?

    The motivation has certainly waned, now that many previously windows-only modems are now supported on Linux by binary-only drivers from the manufacturers. Of course, you cannot use them if you're using the wrong kernel, or SMP, or if you have more than one modem, if you don't permit binary-only drivers, if you are using an Alpha or a PPC-based iMac, or if you want to run any-BSD. But hey, a lot of users are happy enough now, so that does remove some of the motivation for writing the code.

    Which leaves the educational aspect. The interior of a modern modem is not well documented, even in books about signal processing. To be sure, many of the classic algorithms are very well written up, but the details as they apply to modern modem standards are not, and there are some algorithms which V.34 and V.90 clearly require which I have yet to find any information about. (Welcome to re-inventing the wheel, but it is fun!) As Alan Cox once said, the V.90 standard is "semi secret". Read it sometime, if you don't mind paying the relatively modest fee, and you'll see what he means.

    Revealing just how a modern modem works, in the form of working code that (I hope) is readable by those who wish to study it, then, is as much a goal for me as getting winmodems working. And it's interesting because I'm still figuring it out myself :-)

    Interfacing with the hardware

    Several people pointed out, quite correctly, that a software modem won't actually work with any of the hardware "winmodem" devices. This is correct; we need device drivers too, and that is accomplished by reverse engineering the original drivers.

    I don't know Alex's exact requirements. He doesn't mention needing PCM drivers -- perhaps he has his own drivers already? But if he requires reverse-engineered PCM drivers as well then that's quite a bit more work.

    Progress on that front is being made, by several people, but it is really a separate project. It is worth noting that there's a GPL'd Lucent modem driver that can do PCM. It is actually quite old now. I have faith that the PCM driver part of this problem will be solved by eager contributors if there is a good softmodem to make use of it.

    Cheers,
    -- Jamie

    • No, you haven't been unsubscribed from the list, but there are a few messages from the list that you haven't received yet.
      -russ
    • Jamie, first I have to thank you for this very informative post which clarifies for slashdot crowd many issues involved.

      Re: Working on the code
      Yes, I obviously know about your work and mentioned it as one of possible bases to start off development, and I also know that it has been progressing slowly. If the bounty causes you to spend bit more time on the code (and join a team who'll do certain other pieces), that'd be the best possible outcome.

      Re: Homologation
      This is a tricky thing. Yes, you are right, legally, both hardware and software (in case of soft modem) must be certified for connection to phone system. I've been thinking how to handle this (as I definitely won't be able to fund certification of each individual hardware piece+software piece), however, I don't have clear handle on it.

      Hopefully, individual modem manufacturers will be receptive to the idea "How about you make your modem accessable to 10 more million people at an expense of (whatever part 68 certification costs)", at no risk to your intellectual property.

      I'm not even sure how (or whether?) do they certify each new revision of WinModem software. Is only software certified? (not likely!).
      Is each combo of hardware+software certified (expensive!). Do manufacturers certify one version only? (most likely).

      I'm going to find out, hopefully FCC will be receptive. If the latter is the case, that's the strategy we'll pursue.

  • Sorry to pour cold water over the idea... (Score:4, Informative)

    by satch89450 ( 186046 ) on Monday November 19, 2001 @01:19PM (#2585369) Homepage

    I'll be brief with the hurdles you will have to overcome:

    1. Certification: Part 68 certification applies to the entire device, hardware and software, and also applies to any modification made on the device, hardware and software, that can affect the transmitter. International certification is even trickier, and requires that the manufacturer have some standing with each country, although there are now some procedures to streamline the process (CTR-21 comes to mind). In all cases, certification must also be "owned by the manufacturer" -- and the GPL is specifically designed to have software NOT be owned by a single entity.
    2. Stories around the campfire: It's fine to talk about "standards", but be aware that the ITU-T standards are written in such a way that people who are not part of the inner circle will have significantly more difficulty creating working code. Standards only mandate the WHAT, not the HOW, and significant interactions between two ends are not described in the Standards. The fact is, modem design is a bit of a black art because you have to know signal processing, but you also have to know the quirks of the telephone system over which you operate. This is particularly true of echo-cancelling modulation methods such as V.34 and V.90. Getting that information is expensive. Very expensive.
    3. Patents: V.34 and V.90 modulation and demodulation have a number of patents currently active that would need to be dealt with. The problem here is that the companies holding those patents aren't going to provide RF licensing -- in the current economy the patents are significant sources of revenue and the owners aren't about to throw revenue away. You can't get around them.
    4. Testing: Proper testing of modem code is not trivial. I did it for magazines, for companies, and for end-users, and it's damn hard and not cheap. Proper testing would include both lab testing and field trials, with lots of parameter capture so the designer can see how a given connection fails.
    5. Lack Of Interface Standards: each HST modem product has a unique interface board, with absolutely no documentation available from the manufacturers (even when they want to give it out, which they don't) and completely different operation. Let me list the areas of differences: control interface; audio information coding; codec interface; sample rate setting (absolutely required for V.90); hook control; ring detect (I know one board that uses the audio path for this); impedance setting (complex versus fixed, 600 ohm versus 900 ohm, hybrid balance equalization); line monitoring for fax PNG detection while on-hook. There's more, but I can't think of them all.

    Motorola holds the base patents on host signal processing, and I'm not sure how the Open Source community can get around those patents. Given Motorola's hard times, I doubt anyone will convince them to provide a royalty-free license to the patent -- especially as they have a soft-modem product in the race. (But then again, they concentrate in the Windows marketplace, so a Linux license could happen...maybe...if the moon is right.)

    Then there is the CPU intensive nature of HSP modems. Depending on the quality of modem you are trying to do, CPU horsepower requirements are huge. A bare-bones V.34 implementation requires around 40 MHz of a Pentium-class CPU, while a robust bells-and-whistles version needs something like 90-95 MHz. Don't expect a 486 to handle the load. To be as good as possible on as many platforms as possible, the signal processing code would have to use integer arithmetic instead of floating-point, because the floating-point performance of x86 class processors varies quite a bit from chip type to chip type.

    Can it be done? Yes. Can it be done to the expectations of the Linux community? I don't think so, unless one of the big boys (Motorola, Connexent, Nortel, USRobotics) decides to weigh into the market and provide already-developed code and an interface.

    • I'm writing this post using a Toshiba Satellite 1715XCDS laptop, with a built-in Lucent Winmodem. Yes, the modem works under Linux. The only mod to the laptop is an extra 64M of RAM (thanks, Dave), bringing it up to 128M. The CPU is a Celeron-600, if I recall correctly, so if the Winmodem takes up "around 40 MHz of a Pentium-class CPU", we'd expect to see about a 0.8% performance hit.

      The Linux install is RH 7.2; I'm in X right now, running Sawfish, GNOME 1.4 and Nautilus. On top of that, I just closed out some KDE apps (I prefer KMail over Balsa), so there are probably still some KDE things running--the DCOP server, etc. Galeon, Pan, gnome-terminal and a Python program (a small MUD client I hacked together with PyGNOME) are all running.


      11:39pm up 3:26, 1 user, load average: 0.12, 0.08, 0.07
      71 processes: 69 sleeping, 2 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
      CPU states: 1.5% user, 1.1% system, 0.0% nice, 97.2% idle
      Mem: 126644K av, 123836K used, 2808K free, 1828K shrd, 3692K buff
      Swap: 136512K av, 41484K used, 95028K free 29188K cached

      ... I don't see the performance hit, myself. If the Winmodem was just "sucking up" CPU cycles, I wouldn't expect to see my PC 97% idle.

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