Ubuntu and Black Berry

[Anthony M. Rasat]

John Hubbard wrote:
>I am looking at getting a Black Berry Curve and was curious what luck 
people have had with them and [Ku|U]buntu.  
>

I have Blackberry 8800 and as the matter of fact I wrote this reply using it. I also have a gOS gadgets (based on Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron) in a Zyrex Ubud (exact replica of Everex Cloudbook sold in Indonesia).

>Specifically:
>
>1) Has anyone tried to use one as a modem with [Ku|U]buntu gutsy (7.10) 
or intrepid (8.10)?  Was the black berry connected with  bluetooth or USB? 
>

Zyrex has built-in USB-based bluetooth adapter. Tethering wirelessly works flawless. I'm using KPPP to dial EDGE/GPRS in this 8800. But this connection is not using APN www.blackberry.net so watch out, I have both time-based and volume-based connection plan from my cellular provider.

Unfortunately I have no similar luck on USB connecting to modem.

>2) Has anyone tried syncing it with gutsy(7.10) or hardy (8.04)?  What 
software were you using to manager contacts/calender on [Ku|U]buntu?
>

No luck yet on sync. I haven't spent a lot effort though since I'm only using BIS. Google showed several Blackberry-Linux sync howtos, perhaps you can try them.

>3) Any other notes or things that I should watch out for? 

Recharging works with USB. I've tried a regular mini-USB cable connecting 8800 with Hardy and Intrepid, it works (the cable came from a cheap USB card reader. It also works with DKE-2 cable from Nokia). 

Everytime I plug USB to 8800, it start to recharge and opening Rhythmbox music player associated with music files in Music folder.

When connected to USB, your MMC card is mounted to Ubuntu so your MMC seems disappeared from your Blackberry until you unmount it.

Some people said Blackberry can't maintain reply thread (they said it started a new thread instead) but I didn't find clues why since I tried reread those thread using Thunderbird and it was just fine, following the thread.

And lastly, nope, I haven't found a way to change Blackberry themes using Linux. I can think of using VMware Workstation virtualisation and Blackberry Desktop Manager but I'm not exactly "themeing" person. I'm easily satisfied with standard themes.

-- 

Regards,

Anthony M. Rasat
Manager - Technical, Network and Support Division
PT. Jawa Pos National Network
Graha Pena Jawa Pos Group Building, 5th floor
Jln. Raya Kebayoran Lama 12, Jakarta Selatan 12210
Indonesia.-
Phone 02132185562
Phone 081574217035
Fax 02153651465
Web http://www.jpnn.com