There's a whole conversation that starting taking place in the Introductions Forum about installing the Linux driver for the new Asus eeePC, so thought I'd post it again here where it's easier for others to find:


From Nick 4/26/08 8:40 PM
Hi, My names's Nick. I'm director/engineer/programmer at a company in the UK that service medical diagnostic equipment. I'm currently working on software that transfers data via the 3G network using vodafone E220 HSDPA USB Modem.

The platforms I'm using are the Asus EEEPC and Novatech laptops running opensuse 10.3.

I have only just downloaded the software onto the opensuse 10.3 laptop and hope to have it working shortly.

One suggestion I would like to make is that nowhere could I find what models of vodafone 3G hardware is explicitly stated as being supported by this software. I therefore assume the E220 is supported ?


4/28/08 12:29 AM
In answer to my own question, I've successfully installed the VMC software on my Asus EeePC and the application runs ok. I haven't connected to the 3G network yet as I appear to need a username & password. I can't find any details about usernames & passwords, I assume I need to contact Vodafone for this info ? or is there default values I can enter ? The send SMS works ok.


4/28/08 1:24 AM
After googleing I also found the answer. username = web password = web APN = Internet ( Note Internet has a capital I ).

Now I'm on the Internet with vodafone 3G on my Asus EeePC ( Running Linux, of course :) ) EXCELLENT.


From nherriot in reply to Nick 4/28/08 9:02 AM
Hi Nick,

glad to see you got it working. Also thanks for the comments. We are going to put a setup page on the ASUS PC shortly. Lot's to do but no time!

I'd love to hear any other feedback you have, what sort of tutorials and info users would like to see on using the data card.

Did you setup the drivers using the betavine repository method or download the drivers and install your self?


From rbonazzo 4/28/08 9:53 AM
Hi, My names's Rinaldo. I'm IT director at a company in Sardinia Italy.
This is my first time on this forum, please help me.
Saturday vodafone send me the E220 HSDPA USB Modem. But it's not working on my laptop. Some details:
HP Pavillon dv6000 with AMD Turion64 x2
Ubuntu 8.04 for AMD 64
found in the repository an rpm file for 64. With allien I transform rpm in deb install the driver, but when trying to run the program it give the following error:
Failed to load application: No module named serial

Can somebody help me?

Thanks in advance

Rinaldo
from Cagliari Sardinia Italy

From andrewbird ain reply to Rinaldo 4/28/08 10:43 AM
Hi Rinaldo,
It sounds to me like you need to install the python-serial module from the usual Ubuntu repository. I think the problem comes about because when using Alien to create the .deb, the prerequisites were not added. So even when you've fixed this one, there may be others that you need too.

Hope it helps


Andrew

From rbonazzo in reply to Andrew 4/28/08 11:22 AM
Thank Andrew,
install python-serial ok.
Now error are No module named conch.manhole and I don'know where to find it.
Is it possibile to find a download for vodafone internet key for amd64 in deb mode?

Regards

4/29/08 2:44 PM
Hi all,
First thank you to Andrew for the help.
Finally I can use my Vodafone Internet Key on ubuntu 8.04 with Amd Turion64 architecture.

4/28/08 11:42 AM
Hi,
download source tar file read the install file and found all the necessary dependencies.


From Nick in reply to nherriot 4/28/08 10:32 AM

Hi Nick,

I used the betavine repository method. I found the instructions clear & easy to understand. I did have a problem however which I figured out myself. Basically it started installing the software then aborted the installation saying it couldn't setup HAL due to the fact it was attempting to override the file lib... (sorry I tried making a note of it but couldn't copy the messages) anyway it basically said this file was already used by UDEV. It took me five minutes to figure out that I had added some debian respositories to synaptic some months earlier which were in conflict with the betavine repository. The solution was simple, simply untick the debian repoitory in synaptic and reinstall the VMC/Python software from betavine and this time it installed and setup perfectly. So that's probably something to watch for... any unexplained errors.. then make sure the only repositories enabled are the standard eeepc repositories & of course the betavine repository.

Due to the way I need to use the 3G and need to figure out how to make the VMC autorun and autoconnect on bootup. I did see a command line string in one of the forums which I need to test out and see if it works.

I would also like to say that yourself & your colleagues at Vodafone are doing an excellent job supporting Linux in this way. Keep up the good work.

Of course when I bought the 3G dongle from Sainsbury's Vodaphone store and they asked me the question (read from the computer) which operating system are you using windows or MAC. Neither I said, linux ( blank look from sales person ). I explained that vodafone R&D had written software for linux. So maybe vodafone frontline sales staff need to be better informed.

Cheers
Nick

You can find all of the various Linux drivers for Vodafone dongles here:

Linux Driver Resourceshttp://www.betavine.net/web/linux_drivers

Hi

I don't know if you make any suggestions but here goes:

I had my Huawei E220 working nicely on Ubuntu up until the new release (Heron). Now I can't get it recognized, or installed. I notice others are having problems in other forums. Some people seem to have it working without problems, but this seems rare. Maybe it has something to do with Vodafone country settings? There is nothing to set up incorrectly since the Mobile Connect card handles it all.

Who should I communicate with at Betavine about this?

Do you know if it is being addressed and worked on, and should we expect perhaps a solution soon?

many thanks

I am also having problems with the VMCCDL on Ubuntu 8.04.

Version 1.99.17 of the driver worked (sorta) OK with Ubuntu 7.10 (gutsy). On some occasions it would load and the Connect button would be blank. Quitting and
immediately restarting usually fixed the problem.

I have moved to 8.04 (hardy) and loaded version 2.0beta2. The strike rate for having it start and allow a connection is about 1 in 10. It will start sometimes and think that it has never been configured. Other times it will put two icons in the notification area and hang.

On the occasions when it starts fine, it will drop out later and will refuse to start again without a reboot.

The fact that I can get multiple different errors without changing any other software or config has me confused.

If (any of) the developer(s) are reading this I would love to start a dialogue. If I can be of any help in testing I would be happy to put in some time. I'm a coder, I just don't do Python.

Gaz

Hi Gaz,
I've found that using 1.99.17 on Ubuntu 8.04 is approximatly the same experience as you had on 7.10. I'm using a Huawei E172 and I find I can improve things by blacklisting the 'airprime' driver, which for some reason is loaded automatically at the same time as the correct 'option' driver. I do this by creating a file like;

sudo echo "blacklist airprime" \> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-airprime

Then reboot.



The startup problem seems to be related, at least on Huawei cards, to unsolicited messages coming from the card. I have debug logs of a good and bad attempt if anyone is interested? It seems that the application asks for signal strength status, and if gets a valid +CSQ response the application loads properly, if it gets a '^BOOT ....' message beforehand, the load stalls.

Thank you Andrew, blacklisting the airprime module has helped somewhat. On a newly booted system I do not get any false starts any more. I am back using the 1.99.17 driver as well. In fact, I think that it is my attempts to use the 20.betaX versions that may be causing my continuing problems.

Now, when I start the VMCCdfL, I get the control panel but the "Connecting..." widget never disappears, nor does the control panel show the connection speeds. A friend of mine, also on Ubuntu 8.04 and with the identical modem (we refer to them as 'vodamodems'), is not sharing this problem. I suspect that some of the 2.0beta code is lying around causing problems.

Can someone point me to ALL of the locations I would need to clean out to completely remove all versions of the driver and associated python code? I would then intend to reinstall 1.99.17 from scratch.

I think I have found another problem with the driver. If the modem crashes completely it seems to leave /dev/ttyUSB1 behind. Deleting it does not help as the next time the modem is inserted it creates ttyUSB0 and ttyUSB2. Attempting to start VMCCdfL fails as it cannot see ttyUSB0 and ttyUSB1. The only solution I have found to this problem (so far) is to reboot.

Thanks again Andrew,

Gaz

Hi Gaz,
Yes, as you've noticed, deleting the /dev/ttyUSB? files doesn't help. The reason is that something is keeping the port open after you've ejected the card. So look for a stale process that has this open. It's likely to be a python instance since VMC is based on that. You could get all technical and try to locate it properly like this;

fuser /dev/ttyUSB1

That should return a list of process IDs using that device file. They will be prefixed with a single letter that signifies the type of hold they have. When you have the process ID from either method, just kill it/them like;

kill 1234 # where 1234 is the PID you found (without letter prefix)

You can check again with the fuser command to see if it's been released now. If so then reinsert, you should get /dev/ttyUSB0 and /dev/ttyUSB1



I don't know much about the Beta version, I haven't had a chance to have a look at it yet. But if it's like v 1.99.17 the directories to check are

/opt/vmc

/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/Vodafone_Mobile_Connect_Card_driver_for_Linux*


Hope that helps,


Andrew