1) Installing the pctel drivers is actually quite easy. First, you must install gcc, make, and the kernel source code, all this software is shipped with your linux distribution.
In Mandrake Linux you can install it from the Mandrake Control Center, in any case it's on your linux cds.
2) Download the driver from http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/pctel-linux/welcome.html
The current version is 0.9.7-9. Download it to your home directory. It's a tar.gz file. For a start, decompress it, in KDE you can right click the file, and click on actions>extract file here, then click on OK. You must install ark to do this, install ark if it isn't already installed.
3) Anyway, once you've decompressed the driver, you have a directory called pctel-0.9.7-9. Enter this directory, and open a shell. In KDE, right click a blank space in the directory, and click on actions>open a terminal here. Now type
su
and enter your root password when required.
Now run
./setup
You'll get lots of output. If the autodetection doesn't work, you'll have to chose the type of modem manually, be sure you chose the right type of modem.
At the end of output you'll get a message like this
installation done
Now run the following commands
insmod -f pctel
insmod -f ptserial
The driver will load, and the modem will be avalible under /dev/modem.
Now all you have to do is get a dial-up utility, like kppp (That comes with KDE), create an account with your ISP connection parameters (used ID, password, telephone number and so on) and tell it to use the /dev/modem device., but this should already be set by default.
Naturally you'll want to load the driver automatically when you turn on your computer. To do this,  as root user, open the file /etc/modules.conf with a text editor like kwrite,
at the end of the file, add the following lines
install pctel  /sbin/insmod -f  pctel
install ptserial /sbin/insmod -f ptserial
Do not change anything else in the file. Now save the changes, and run, as root, in a shell
depmod -a
and the driver will be loaded for you at boot.

Common problems
The ./setup command may fail with the following error:

checking for modversions.h.../usr/src/linux/include/linux/modversions.h
checking for kernel_version...In file included from t.c:2:
/usr/src/linux/include/linux/version.h:1:28: linux/rhconfig.h: No such file or directory
./configure: line 1: ./t: No such file or directory
rm: cannot lstat `./t': No such file or directory
** error
could not determine a proper UTS_RELEASE
** compilation error
please read the FAQ about reporting compilation problems
and report this problem.
[root@localhost pctel-0.9.7-9]#

Don't panic, as root, open the file /usr/src/linux/include/linux/version.h with a text editor like kwrite, and change the first line from
#include <linux/rhconfig.h>
to
#include "rhconfig.h"
save the changes, and run the ./setup command again. This time it will work.

For comments or questions email ivanleo@gmail.com