Your modem is a peripheral device to Linux, like a CD-ROM drive, hard drive, or a mouse. Your modem will be connected to a serial port, which means that one of the serial devices in the /dev directory actually points to your modem. You may notice that there’s also a file, /dev/modem, which serves as a placeholder for your modem. Initially this file doesn’t point to anything. To simplify your operations, so that applications like minicomand seyon need only refer to /dev/modem, you can create a symbolic link from the serial device connected to your modem to /dev/modem.

To do so, login as root and issue the command:

ln -sf /dev/ttySX /dev/modem

where X is replaced by the number corresponding to the serial device that points to your modem. Table 11-1 shows how the proper command corresponds to the device by which your modem is known user DOS and Linux.