Jamie's Random Musings
Various thoughts and adventures, including but not limited to Linux, Windows XP and Widows Vista, and assorted bits of hardware new and old.
Monday 9 February 2009, 7:44 PM
Netbook and Broadband Wireless
The new card is once again a Swisscom OEM unit, but this time under the covers it is an Option GE201 Globe Trotter Express. I first tried it with Windows XP Professional and the Swisscom OEM software, and of course that worked just fine. No surprise there. Then I started trying it with the various Linux distributions that I have loaded on the Mini-Note...
- openSuSE recognized the card, and created ttyHS[0-2] devices when it was inserted. Good start. Network Manager doesn't do anything automatically, but I was able to add it manually, which looked promising. But it fails to connect. I also tried setting up wvdial to use it, but couldn't get that working either.
- MEPIS 8.0 RC2 didn't seem to recognize or react to the card in any way. Bummer.
- Vector Linux also didn't react to the card at all. This is getting disappointing...
- Mandriva One 2009.0 recognized the card when it was inserted, and added a connection to the Network Center. This looked very promising... but when I try to connect, it fails. The lights on the card blink in a very strange way when it tries to connect, but that's about it.
At this point I was ready to give up, and just use the card with Windows as I used to have to with the Sierra Wireless card. Then I remembered that I still have Ubuntu 9.04 loaded on the Mini-Note, so I thought I would give it one last try... and this time, it just worked. When I inserted the card, Network Manager recognize it and added a connection for it. All I had to do was tell it that I am in Switzerland, using Swisscom. Then click on the 'Connect' button, wait about 15 seconds, and it connected. Just that easy, really. Amazing!
I don't know why it is always the last thing that I try which works... why can't it be the first thing once in a while?
jw 9/2/2009
PreviousComments on this post
You didn't explain much about how you 'tried to connect' in Mandriva. Did you run drakconnect and run through the wizard for setting up a new 3G connection?
Hi Adam, thanks for reading and commenting, as always. Yes, I know that I was rather brief in what I said about Mandriva, and all the others for that matter, and my attempts to get the Broadband Wireless card working. In fact, I was very hopeful when I first tried it on Mandriva, as it was the first one which actually recognized the card and started to do the right things when I plugged it in. Here are the details:
- With the HSPA card not inserted, the Network Center (draknetcenter) shows two interfaces, the Broadcom wired and wireless adapters.
- When I plug in the Option HSPA card, the lights on the card go through the proper startup sequences, and if I stop and restart the Network Center, it now has a third entry, correctly identified as "GPRS/Edge/3G Option N.V. Globetrotter HSDPA Modem". Very promising, this was the point where I was quite hopeful.
- When I click on that entry, it goes through a configuration and scanning sequence, and then correctly lists "Swisscom" as a possible connection. Very, very promising...
- If I click on Configure, there is a short list of pre-configured countries, Switzerland is not one of them, but I can choose "Unlisted - edit manually", and then put in the access point and login information which I have previously been given by Swisscom. I was told by Swisscom that a login and password were not necessary, but I could use "gprs" for both if they had to be filled in. I have tried both with and without, and the result is the same.
- When I click on "Connect", either nothing at all happens, or the leds on the card both start blinking very rapidly, and it never connects.
- I have been through drakconnect, it sees and identifies the HSPA card correctly, as does the Network Center, but the only option there is to enter a PIN code. I have tried both with and without a PIN code (changing the configuration of the card accordingly using the Swisscom Windows UDM software), and the result is the same either way.
Thanks again for taking the time to read and comment.
jw
