This is one wide area that no clear online article is available as a help document. I my self had a huge problem in searching and making my modem to work with Edgy. When you google for the Conexant AccessRunner driver you get the driver file as sources from the sourceforge,
http://accessrunner.sourceforge.net/index.shtml
where you have to add those files to the kernel source tree and recompile the kernel creating a great deal of work. But yet luckily the new kernels (after 2.6.10) have this driver inbuilt (Ubuntu Dapper/edgy) so you don’t have to mess up recompiling the kernel.
Any how you have to manually add the firmware, otherwise the modem will not work. (The LEDs wont Blink) for this you have to do few things, things I gathered from many online forums/blogs and help guides.
you have to extract the CnxEtU.sys file from the CD which you got from the vendor of your modem, and have to place it in /lib/firmware directory to make the firmware working. The step by step guide as follows.
for this purpose since we do not have the extract command, we have to download the package that Nicholas Wheeler created. from http://revu.tauware.de/details.py?upid=2426 there are several files but what you have to take is cxacrufw_1.2.orig.tar.gz and cxacrufw_1.2-1.diff .
After downloading these two files unzip the .gz and copy the .diff file in to that folder, and being inside that folder through the terminal patch it using
patch < cxacrufw_1.2-1.diff
then type make and make install. now you mush be havening a command called cxacru-fw. now your ready to extract the firmware.
insert the CD you got from the modem vendor and using the terminal type the following commands.
cp /media/cdrom/driver/ADSL/Wan/CnxEtU.sys ~/
(the above path can be different according to your settings so adjust the folder path)
then
cxacru-fw ~/CnxEtU.sys ~/cxacru-fw.bin
sudo cp ~/cxacru-fw.bin /lib/firmware
Make sure that the firmware is installed as /lib/firmware/cxacru-fw.bin or else the LED wont light up.
restart your computer and thats it you must be seeing the modem is working fine with the LED lighten up. anyhow though you have attached the modem to the computer and if your ISP is providing you a PPPoE protocol you will still have problems connecting your modem to Internet
there are few sites I saw some details which i think will be useful so just visit till I post a topic on HOW TO configure PPPoE
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/DSL-HOWTO/configure.html#BRIDGEVSPPP
and if any one who knows on PPPoE please leave a comment….
@nuwanbando 