[ubuntu-in] USB Mobile Broadband Service

[Ramnarayan.K]

On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 7:21 PM, Kaushal Shriyan
<kaushalshriyan at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi
>
> How do we address the issues of making it work the latest chipset provided by the Service Provider to make it work on Ubuntu Desktops. I mean whenever there is a new USB Mobile Broadband Service chipset available in Market how do we make them work in Ubuntu. Do i need to update my Desktop to the latest release every time ?
>
> For example : I use Tata Photon + with EC1260 chipset which works in Ubuntu 10.10 but when i try to use the latest Tata Photon + with EC152 chipset it does not work out of the box.
>
> Please suggest/guide further.

usually the problem with USB devices is that they don't get recognized
by Ubuntu (linux) and one needs to tll Ubuntu to recognize the device
and correlate it to a particular port and once that happens the next
step is for Ubuntu to load the driver (the drivers are usually built
onto the device) and then it gets to work.

The process i normally follow for a new device is
1. plug in the device and in a command line run dmesg
-$ dmesg  - c

if the device is recognized it will usually have an output (last few
lines) some like gsm device recognised and attached to ttyusb0 or
ttyusb1 etc

if this happens your device should work

if it does not then one has to find out the device product  id and vendor id


for this
run (in a terminal)
lsusb

see if you can identify the device -
some like
Bus 004 Device 004: ID 19d2:fffe ONDA Communication S.p.A.

**
if you can identify the device then just get that data but running
lsusb -v - s "bus number"

leave out the " " when typing the bus number (some thing like 001 or 004 etc)

**
if not then run lsusb -v  which will give the details of all usb devices

then browse through the entire list and find what is relevant to your data card.

mine looks something like this
Bus 004 Device 004: ID 19d2:fffe ONDA Communication S.p.A.
Device Descriptor:
> snipped
  idVendor           0x19d2 ONDA Communication S.p.A.
  idProduct          0xfffe
  bcdDevice            0.00
  iManufacturer           1 ZTE, Incorporated
  iProduct                2 ZTE CDMA Tech
  iSerial                 0

here the vendor and product id is given note this detail down

**
If the device is not recognized at all then some of the technical
heavies will need to weigh in.

**
However if you can get the vendor and product id the next stage is to
install wvdial

sudo apt-get install wvdial

If no internet works on your machine - then you can ask some one to
download then and provide you the necessary file (like via apton or
something)

**
The next few steps are to try and load the driver (make sure the
device is plugged in)

run
$ sudo modprobe usbserial vendor=0x19d2 product=0xfffd

replace the vendor and product id with your specific ones

you could also  mknod's (it might already be there but making it again
won't do anything atleast the first time)

-$ mknod /dev/ttyUSB0 c 188 0
-$ mknod /dev/ttyUSB1 c 188 1

**
after all this run dmesg -c and see if your device is attached (as in
the attached to ttysub0 etc)

if this is the case all you need now to make it connect to the internet

for this we will use wvdial (you can later on figure out gnome-ppp
etc) but wvdial is simple and effective and a sureshot way to know
your device works (till and Ubuntu (linux) version gets it to work
directly

run sudo gedit /etc/wvdial.conf

this will open a file called wvdial.conf for editing. It may already
have some contents - copy that over with the following lines

**
[Modem0]
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Baud = 230400
SetVolume = 0
Dial Command = ATDT
Init1 = ATZ
FlowControl = Hardware (CRTSCTS)
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Modem Type = Analog Modem
New PPPD = yes
Idle Seconds = 90
Auto Reconnect = off

[Dialer "any name"]
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Phone = #777
Stupid Mode = 1
Username = "username"
Password = "password"

**
replace the words / numbers in " " with your specific details

**
once this is done

open a terminal and type

sudo wvdial "any name"

this should show up some details about connecting and the an ip
address and some dns address will show up which means the internet is
connected

to disconnect press control c in the terminal.

If this works - then next time all you need to do is make a launcher
and that should be a one click button to start your internet

however - if there is a problem of your Ubuntu not recognizing the
device every time then the only step you need to repeat - (only once
everytime you start up)

is the modprobe line

**
I know this looks like a lot of work and a lot of command line,
however this is a pretty much sure shot way and once it works it quite
nice.

happy browsing
ram