Another noob thread, except I'm not too noob.

[drewmerc]

the guy who tftp'd a firmware to a 5101 must have had the modem in factory mode which is rare
altho a few other haxor compatable modem can be done this way webby/sa/cisco 2100's
jtag is possible under linux but it is a pain in the ass, but usb jtag is very easy (cost is an issue tho)
as there is a linux version of usbjtagnt software


as you can see i run debian and virtualbox never worked right for me aswell so i use vmware player
to host a copy of xp (vmware is great once you work out the install command, i had to google it lol)

even if you dont like the sound of both of the above cost or proprietary software (hello richard stallman)
i would suggest a ttl (max232) cable, for this i use an old nokia dku-5 (or dku-42) cable (cheap & usb)
to connect to the internal serial port on a 5101 and flash it via serial/telnet