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Happily MiNT is developed permanently and maybe you think about an update. The newest public versions are always available at the homepage of Frank Naumann.
In the moment 1.15.10b is the actual version, although it is in beta stage this version is very stable and works on my machine since many months without any trouble. If someone is brave and wants to test the newest alpha kernel, he can download them with CVS. In that case you must have installed the cvs package and be able to compile the kernel by yourself. So, this is something for the more expierienced MiNT user.
I want to point to something special and new with kernel version 1.15.10b, in former versions you had to activate memory protection mode by renaming MINTNP.PRG to MINT.PRG. In newer kernel versions this is made with a boot menu that appears when holding down left SHIFT key when MiNT starts. You will be asked if want to get the boot menu or not and then you can configure your kernel boot behaviour. MiNT writes a file MINT.INI to your C:\MINT directory when ready, this file is read by MiNT every time it starts.

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Also since some time there are new MiNT serial device drivers, with the following features:

• native driver routines for FreeMiNT, completely interrupt driven
• minimal system load
• stable and constant data rates at 115200 Baud completely in the background
• installs RSVF compatible and MiNT tty devices
• Supports all filesharing and -locking mechanisms
• completely supported by FreeMiNT

A great advantage of the new drivers is their easy installation procedure, but only when you hadn't installed HSModem before.:) You only copy the xdd to C:\MINT and that's it.
But these drivers work only with MiNT versions >= 1.15.6!
When you had installed HSMODEM drivers before, it is a little bit more difficult, but not so hard.:)
First deactivate or delete the AUTO programs (DRVIN.PRG and SCC.PRG, MFP.PRG etc.) and the RSVX.PRG
After that load MINT.CNF in your editor and remove or comment the following lines:

             # Die Schnittstellen bekommen vernünftige Namen

             ren u:\dev\modem1 u:\dev\ttya
             ren u:\dev\modem2 u:\dev\ttyb
             ren u:\dev\serial1 u:\dev\ttyc
             ren u:\dev\serial2 u:\dev\ttyd
             ren u:\dev\midi u:\dev\ttye
             ren u:\dev\HSMODEM1 u:\dev\modem1
             ren u:\dev\HSMODEM2 u:\dev\modem2
             ren u:\dev\HSLAN u:\dev\serial2
             ren u:\dev\HSSERIAL1 u:\dev\serial1
             ren u:\dev\HSSERIAL2 u:\dev\serial2
            

If there is a line with setenv MODEMDEV comment it out or delete this too.

Then you have to look for the line where RSVX.PRG is started, comment or delete it:

             exec c:\auto\rsvx.prg

            

In folder C:\MINT HSMINST.XDD has to be deactivated or deleted and at last you have to copy the serial xdd driver in your C:\MINT directory, corresponding to your machine. The following drivers are available at the moment:

• MFP.XDD - For the ST(E), TT and Milan
• SCC.XDD - For Falcon
• UART.XDD - For UART devices of Milan (please use the latest drivers!)

ST-ESCC serial device modification isn't supported until now, if you're interested in it, please contact Frank Naumann.
New is the naming of the tty devices, with HSMODEM the devices got names like ttya, ttyb and so on, now they have the names that are also used in Linux world, ttyS0, ttyS1 and so on, you can see this in /dev folder. Because of this case, you have to change devices in your applications, like pppd. Is there something like

/dev/ttya

you have to change this to

/dev/ttyS0

A little table should show you the relations between the different devices:

HSMODEM	terminal
device	device	ST	MegaSTE	TT	Falcon	Hades	Milan
modem1	ttyS0	MODEM	MODEM1	MODEM1	-	unknown	MFP port
modem2	ttyS1	-	MODEM2	MODEM2	MODEM2	unknown	UART1 (2f8)
serial1	ttyS2	-	-	SERIAL1	-	unknown	-
serial2	ttyS3	-	SERIAL2	SERIAL2	-	unknown	UART2 (3f8)
lan	ttyS4	-	LAN	LAN	LAN	unknown	-
midi	ttyS5	Midi	Midi	Midi	Midi	unknown	-

You can download all this drivers from the homepage of Frank Naumann. You will find them in the FreeMiNT Modules archiv.

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I have put now pppd 2.3.11 to the Mfl distribution and there are some changes since pppd 2.2.0 that may occure trouble. First there is the option "noauth" that have to be set now in your /etc/ppp/options resp. /etc/ppp/peers/provider (see below). When you don't set this, your connection to your provider will fail, because the provider has to authenticate himself to us. In former pppd versions this option was integrated in the pppd program and it was switched of with the command "auth". So, if your connection to your provider fails, first look if you had set "noauth"!
A very nice new feature of pppd 2.3.x is the possibility to manage more than one provider without renaming and copying different files. You only have to create a directory peers/ in your /etc/ppp folder, put the /etc/ppp/options file in this folder and rename it to your providers name. In /etc/ppp/options you can set serial device and speed so you have this systemwide. In the /etc/ppp/peers/provider file you can delete this.
For connecting to a provider you only have to enter this in your shell:

              bash-2.03# pppd call Provider

            

Provider is the name of the file you put in /etc/ppp/peers.

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