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ZTE MF820 on Ubuntu (Virtual Machine)

Posted: 17 Feb 2012, 02:20
by Satian
I'm am having trouble making ZTE MF820 4G USB device work on ubuntu 8.04 which is running on a virtual machine. Is there a problem regarding usb_modeswitch when it comes to virtual machines? After installing usb_modeswitch and connecting the device should it work straight forward or do I have to make another thing?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks a lot!

Posted: 25 Feb 2012, 00:58
by Josh
Unfortunately, I have no experience with virtual machines. I don't use them and I don't test with them.

Does your device work on a native system?

Re: ZTE MF820 on Ubuntu (Virtual Machine)

Posted: 30 Mar 2012, 16:04
by mkotsbak
Why are you using Ubuntu 8.04? Maybe you should upgrade to a newer version. And which virtual machine? You probably need to specify that the USB device should be used inside the virtual machine, and make sure that no drivers are attached to it at the host machine.

Posted: 03 Apr 2012, 18:54
by Satian
I'm using Ubuntu 8.04 because I have some compatibility issues with some old software i must use for research purposes...
I'm running it on top of a mac with VMWare Fusion and I have specified that the device is inserted on the virtual machine.

I now realized that this version of ubuntu has a kernel version older than 2.6.27 so I followed the instructions and moved the "40-usb_modeswitch.rules" file from folder "/lib/udev/rules.d" to the folder "/etc/udev/rules.d".

Now the switching seemed to work since i no longer can see the device working as usb storage. However, I still can't manage to connect the device to the network. When I connect it on windows or mac the device first installs the proprietary software (and driver I guess) which enables to make the connection. On ubuntu I can't install that software so I am not able to connect even though i think I have correctly accomplished to make the switch.
Is there anything else I can do?

Posted: 04 Apr 2012, 10:56
by mkotsbak
Satian wrote:I'm using Ubuntu 8.04 because I have some compatibility issues with some old software i must use for research purposes...
I'm running it on top of a mac with VMWare Fusion and I have specified that the device is inserted on the virtual machine.

I now realized that this version of ubuntu has a kernel version older than 2.6.27 so I followed the instructions and moved the "40-usb_modeswitch.rules" file from folder "/lib/udev/rules.d" to the folder "/etc/udev/rules.d".

Now the switching seemed to work since i no longer can see the device working as usb storage. However, I still can't manage to connect the device to the network. When I connect it on windows or mac the device first installs the proprietary software (and driver I guess) which enables to make the connection. On ubuntu I can't install that software so I am not able to connect even though i think I have correctly accomplished to make the switch.
Is there anything else I can do?
Okay, but the easiest then would probably be to run the modem on the Mac host if the purpose is to access internet, or is the Mac too old too?

I have before successfully run Windows inside VMWare on Linux host using a similar modem so I guess that should work ok. The problem is probably some missing parts in the OS. I'm waiting for this modem myself so I haven't tested it yet, but the following unreleased kernel patches are probably needed (appearing in Linux 3.4):

http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-usb/msg59977.html
http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-usb/msg59978.html

But it seems like maybe a 3.0.x stable kernel is sufficient:

http://www.mail-archive.com/stable@vger ... 03439.html

Also look at this thread for workaround for manual initalization of the modem, but it might now work if you have an old kernel (maybe you can upgrade just that):

http://www.draisberghof.de/usb_modeswit ... php?p=4995

Posted: 12 Apr 2012, 19:29
by Josh
There should be no problem with installing the latest version of usb_modeswitch and its data package from source on your distribution - apart from the adaptation that you already did. If installed properly, the serial driver should be loaded automatically, with "usbserial" as a fallback if "option" can't take new device IDs on the fly yet.

Check your "dmesg" output after plugging in. Does it say something about new serial ports?