speedtouch usb modem gone after update --solved

[goosnargh]

I recently ran an emerge -uD on a rusting gentoo install (by gentoo standarts - untouched since july) followed by an emerge depclean. I knew I was asking for trouble and that is what I got. My speedtouch modem no longer works.

I merged and compiled a 2.6.0-test8 kernel, booted it, failing to connect to net, went back to my working conf with 2.4.20 (I know, I know) kernel. Only that it no longer did. Back in the 1.2 days, there was no speedtouch ebuild so I know how to install the driver and configure ppp by hand. I'm no expert, but did follow the generic linux instructions so many times that I know all by heart. I therefore checked and know for a fact that all configuration in /etc/ppp is OK. modem_run also runs fine. It should connect when I say "pppd call adsl" but it doesn't. It seems (from /var/log/everything/current) the ppp deamon cannot connect to the port opened by pppoa3 but I'm not sure if I read that correctly.

Any ideas to try out?

edit: I tried using kernel driver in 2.6, I tried downgrading ppp, l tried unmerging everything and remerging. Nothing worked but downgrading speedtouch to 1.2beta1-r1 from 1.2beta2.