I tend to live in the Third world, and my uses are somewhat simplistic. Only this week did I get an old Linksys router to work on my non-wireless DSL modem and it took a visit from my son-in-law, who knew to change Device IP Address.

The only thing that comes to mind when someone says modem, is the driver issue. That has been a problem forever. Conexant modems are always a bear, and my 2wire DSL modem has no USB driver for Linux.

My Google suggestion is to google for your model of machine, and the issue, starting with modem. rather than treating it as a Mandriva problem. Find out what make it is, then go from there if you have drivers. You could post laptop details here, on the chance someone might know by accident.

In the past, I have fixed dial-up modems on all my laptops, lucent and conexant, but now that I seem to always have access to DSL, the problems have shifted to wireless.