Linux Support for Wireless Laptop Internet?

scubacuda asks: "I'm looking for a good "all you can eat" cellular data plan for my laptop. So far, I've looked into T-mobile, Earthlink, and Verizon's wireless Internet options. Any suggestions on price, availability, and speed? The real kicker for me is Linux support, which, I've been told by all three companies, is NOT available. (Any and all hacks would be greatly appreciated!)" This particular market is still in a great degree of flux, especially with landscape-changing deals like the AT&T/Cingular merger going on in the background and issue of going for cellular or WiFi connectivity service. Are there any wireless carriers that you've been able to get working on a Linux laptop? If so, what did you have to do to attain your wireless laptop nirvana?

Comments

Boo.

[Heem]

I hate that something like this even need linux support. I mean, it's basicaly a modem - it should emulate a simple piece of hardware and work on any combination of hardware and software without fancy client software. Imagine if you had to have fancy client with all these unneeded bells and whistles for your 2400 Baud external modem back in the day.

Re:Boo.

[e9th]

Bear in mind that, especially in laptops, even modems don't emulate modems anymore.

Difference between support and works with

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet if you ask them if they supported Firefox, the answer would be no, too. Support means they have easy instructions to repeat to the caller, not that other things don't work with it.

Re:Difference between support and works with

[Bri3D]

Exactly. Support means they will *help* you with any problems you may have and make it work for you(this rarely actually happens, but that's the theory). Not supported means the company isn't responsible for and won't help you with your problems, not that there actually are any problems.

Support is worthless anyway

[doodleboy]

What corporations mean by "support" is one or two OSes that are standardized enough for the bottom-end support people to walk the users through simple scripts, i.e. "ensure that the computer is plugged in and turned on, click start, click setting, click network and dialup connections, etc..."

The last Verizon tech I talked to didn't know what dhcp was. There's no way these people could deal with something as varied *nix, and frankly you don't want them to. If the hardware works and the protocols are supported you're good to go. If you have a problem reboot the modem. You won't get much else in the way of useful information of the support staff anyway, even if you are running windows.

For GPRS it usually works

[KZigurs]

Actually - it usually does. You have to figure out how to configure it yourself, of course - ether as an USB Phone modem or Bluetooth Modem, but apart from this all you need to know is gprs configuration parameters (gprs access *point* name, user, password).

The best I have seen from this are motorolla phones with miniUsb connector. They have simple and proper support for usb modem.

Those software packages and fancy config dialogs - screw them. provider can't avoid infrastructure standards, so - use them.

Re:Support!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Things can be overrated at 0, 1 or 2, regardless of whether they have been modded before. If you post stupid comments like that then your karma bonus is definitely "overrated".

Re:I got it to work with my Xbox and Debian

[Otter]

This is a perfect illustration of why when you ask them "Will your wireless service work on my X-Box running Debian?" they answer "Uh, that's not supported."