Avoid installing the somewhat broken snd-intel8x0m driver?

[Karl Hegbloom]

On Sat, 2004-12-18 at 14:18 -0500, azz wrote:
> The equally unsupported sl-modem-daemon package will load this (free,
> GPL) module if the non-free one is unavailable.  Since these modems
> have conflicting pci IDs, it seems to be a reasonable default.  If you
> have compiled the sl-modem-module, it should automagically use that.
> 
> These drivers are known to work on many ac97 codec type modems.

I have a laptop with a Smartlink modem that works great with the slamr
module built from 'sl-modem-source', but does not work with the
'snd_intel8x0m' ALSA module.  The opposite is true for my friend's Dell
Inspiron -- there slamr does not work, but the ASLA driver does.

In either case, the 'sl-modem-daemon' is _required_ since it is what
actually implements the Hayes compatible AT command set and operates the
device itself as an actual modem.  Since the init.d script for the
'sl-modem-daemon' will load the driver when it starts, In my opinion,
the 'snd_intel8x0m' should be written into /etc/hotplug/blacklist or a
file in /etc/hotplug/blacklist.d/ to prevent it from being loaded
automatically.  This way, when the 'sl-modem-modules' are installed,
they will be prefered, otherwise the ALSA driver will be.

A Wiki page should be created to help people with this type of modem in
getting it to work.  First try the ASLA driver, then try the
'sl-modem-source' built modules.