USB_ModeSwitch

I'm trying to set up a computer for a friend. Put Linux Mint 12 32 bit gnome on and had problems wth the desktop displaying due to the graphics card so installed MATE (don't think this would be relevant but incase thought I'd mention)

Ordered him a 3G modem to get him on the internet thinking it would be plug and play.

Found that it isn't (its a 3G / 4G HUAWEI E3131)

After messing about for ages - trying it on another computer under Mint and Windows 7 (works on windows)

I find this

"this device does not present itself as a 'serial' modem, (so no /dev/ttyUSB*). Instead, when activated, it appears to be a network device, with an ethernet interface. I don't have experience of configuring or using this type of device, and the information I've been able to trawl from the web is sketchy at best"

here

http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get- ... e3131.html

and almost decide to give up.... but....


lsusb shows the modem as 12d1:14fe

I do a last web search for that and find this Polish page - where someone claims to have it working

http://forum.jdtech.pl/Watek-e3131-aero ... ala?page=2

Mint has
usb-modeswitch-data 20110805-1
usb-modeswitch 1.1.9-1ubuntu3

I create the file /etc/usb_modeswitch.d/12d1:14fe that is shown on the Polish page.

Now lsusb shows modem as 12d1:1f01

do an internet search for this and find that there is a fiile in the usb-modeswitch-data package

Download and unpack the tar.bz2

Copy all the files from usb_modeswitch.d/ folder in that package into /etc/usb_modeswitch.d/

Before doing this the only file in /etc/usb_modeswitch.d/ is the one I had created - 12d1:14fe

After doing all this no change - I'm confused don't really understand what is going on.....

I'm thinking it would probably be good to install the latest version of usb_modeswitch - but I'm not sure it will work under Mint (says problems with later versions of Ubuntu) also I've not installed software inn this fashion before only used software centre or apt-get so it's all a bit worrying (eg. what does "you will need the "tcl" package for the large dispatcher script. " mean??? )

Am I likely to get this working before I go insane.... or am I better off getting another (just 3G) usb modem that will just plug and work???

I hope this is all of some use as I think that this device is currently unsupported in the most recent version of usb_modeswitch - looks like it will become much more common.

Best

DZR

This device is included in the data package since November 2011. So the Mint package seems to be a bit outdated.

Clarifying the situation about the ".deb" package: there was a tiny change in the package for Debian with regard to a shell function "library" which is present there but was not at the Ubuntu installation at the time.

I'm not sure if this is an issue on Mint which I don't have installed.

The source package should not have problems, it's really self-contained apart from the "tcl" package and the "libusb-dev" package (for compilation) which you can easily install from your usual repository.

Using the source packages from here will not break anything when installed over the existing package. Just "make; make install" in the unpacked folders.

Got the "tcl" package and the "libusb-dev" packages using the Mint Software Manager

Downloaded and unpacked the USB_Modeswitch program and the data tar.bz2 packages from this website.

Tried "make; make install" from terminal after changing directory (cd) into the folder where I'd unpacked the program and the data tar.bz2 packages but it was complaining about not having permissions. So tried "sudo make; make install" still no good so...

had to log in as root in terminal (sudo -i) after creating a root password ( sudo passwd root ) and then cd to the folders then doing "make; make install" in each worked

Unplugged and plugged the device and all worked fine

Thankyou - much much easier than I was expecting