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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?
How much bandwidth were you getting, and what were your ping times (I've heard horror stories about minute+ ping times for certain satellite services... probably bogus, but this is /. ;)
And Bluetooth. I'm not avare of bluetooth support in recent linux releases, but I happily use bluetooth with my ibook laptop and Nokia 6600 wherever I go. Bluetooth defines wireless modem profile, and from there, it's a piece of cake.
http://www.emperorlinux.com and
http://www.vectorlinux.com
Good combo.
I use the Aircard 555 with telus wireless in Canada. Sierra has an "UNSUPPORTED" driver for the AirCard that took me only a few minutes to get going. The coverage and speeds telus claims are another story (only really good in major centers), but otherwise no problems.
5 5_Linux.asp
http://www.sierrawireless.com/SupportDownload/ac5
Note the linux drivers do not include support for "extra features" like voice mail etc.
Many Toughbooks come with an (optional) "cellular modem" for the service of your choice. (GSM, PCSVision, GPRS. etc)
Grandparent poster might have misunderstood the question, but he might not have...
PS:
Toughbooks rule!
My CF-M34 is cool - and has lots of cool hardware hacking possibilities.
But how do I put Linux on it? It has no internal CD or floppy, and can't boot from USB!
You can get unlimited email and port 80 access with T-Mobile for $5/month through their "Unlimited T-Zones" service... although they only advertize it as "WAP Access". Some people report that T-Mobile is cracking down and preventing non-WAP use of port 80, but it still works for me. Check the T-Mobile board at HowardForums for more up to date info.
Worst case scenario is that you might have to subscribe to their "Unlimited Internet" service for $20/month.
If you need DSL-like speeds, go with someone else. T-Mobile's GPRS access is usually slower than dial-up.
How you hook up the phone depends on the phone. All the Nokia symbian phones can hook up to a linux computer wirelessly using bluetooth. Others use cables. Here's one guide I just found using Google... there are many other's out there.
I don't see the point of getting a dedicated pcmcia card for the connection. Even if you don't intend to use the phone, it will probably be cheaper than a PC card.
http://nextelbroadband.com
And, for hardware, you can choose between a PCMCIA card (which probably requires Windoze drivers) and a modem with an ethernet port. I assume the modem with ethernet doesn't require any special drivers or software (although that could be a bad assumption).
I'm posting this using my Moto V60s phone connected via a USB cable to my Windows PC. I've also gotten it working using a Mac. Basically, the phone looks like a USB connected modem with its own whacky command set.
I found a lot of information in a Yahoo group that was about this stuff. Got modem chat scripts and things like that that you need to get it all working. Can't remember the group name, but Google should be able to help.
I get ~100kbs effective transfer speeds. I don't pay for an extra data plan, just use my existing voice minutes which include unlimited nights and weekends.
If you're looking for support, you're screwed.
If you're looking for functionality I have written documents for my company's knowledgebase.
I do work for a large wireless carrier, and I have made this information available on my personal website as I haven't yet received approval to make it available on our external support site and can e-mail you my url(will not post it to avoid being slashdotted)if you want e-mail me at chiane25@hotmail.com if you are interested.
Methods of tethering I've written about are IrDA, bluetooth, PC Cards(all that we sell) as well as USB.
I really should create an account on slashdot to rake in some karma.
I got the T-Mobile unlimited data plan, and I have a Sony Ericcson T68i phone (I'm in the NYC area, so coverage is quite good in the area).
What I do is connect my t68i via the serial cable or bluetooth to my laptop. and use it as a modem that way, havent had a problem in the major areas...
My only wish is this: I can actually use my cell phone as a actual modem, and not have to depend on the network's gprs service (My regular mobile is off ATT/Cingular, and they charge by sheer data used). While I realize that this is in a way odd and also not feasible simply because of how the signals are transferred - i long for an old school acoustic coupler kind of thing, since i get free night/weekends on my regular mobile, and it would be nice to able to use that for that particular service when i'm traveling about.
Everyone who is interested in this should call ALL providers before doing anything to find out. The answer will be no, but the goal is to make our voice heard. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Yes I know the guy on the other end of the line rarely collects these statics, but you never know when you talk to the one guy who will be asked. Once management hears that the question comes up they start keeping track of how often it comes up (this will happen withing warning so we don't slashdot their phone lines). If there is enough people calling, the message will be recieved. Make sure your voice isn't lost.
If you get this working on an unsupported network (your only choice now), and suddenly it stops working with linux (make sure it is something they did, and not your mistake - check with others!), then it is time to slashdot their support lines, and don't accept "not supported" for an answer, talk to management (even though it is the guy at the next desk), and keep screaming. When nobody on a "supported OS" can get though because they broke the "unsupported OS", they will change.
I did this 3 years ago, for a cross-country drive (Tampa, FL to Los Angeles, CA, 2500 miles, 2.5 days). I wanted to "broadcast" my drive, so I had my Linux laptop capturing from a webcam, and sending the pictures back up to my web server.
:)
:) Oh, and never drive it in a U-Haul. It took 5 days with only one real sleep stop.
I used the Nextel im1100. The speed wasn't great (or even good most of the time), but it let me get the images up slowly. I could get one frame every 5 to 10 seconds sent up, which was more than enough to entertain my friends, who would check up on my progress every few hours.
You have to do a ppp script, just like you would dialing up on a conventional modem to an ISP. The init string was something odd. I think it was AT&S0=0 . The dial string was simply "ATDT". If you search around on DejaNews, you can find the right init string, if I'm mistaken.
There are other providers who's modems work exactly the same way. When I was researching it 3 years ago, they all acted like serial cards. I picked Nextel, because I already had a couple cell phones with them, and I could simply add it to my account. I don't know if things have really changed, but when I was looking at them, they advertise a "max" speed, which is *MUCH* higher than your real connection speed. In other words, you'll never see the speeds they offer. Generally it'll be 9600 baud, with really bad latency. 400ms+ pings were the norm.
Nextel will tell you specifically that they won't work on anything but Windows, but trust me, it works fine. It's the difference between what the support people know, and the way it really is.
The im1100 has it's own battery, it doesn't depend on the laptop for power. For my drive, I had the laptop and the modem plugged into a power inverter. I got pulled over twice on that drive. The cops gave my setup a really funny look, but didn't really say anything about it. Oddly enough, driving 2500 miles, you really start questioning if the speed limit should be so low..
I kept asking myself, "My car can easily do 160mph. I'm doing 75mph. If I doubled my speed, I'd cut this drive time in half. It's 800 miles to the next state. At 75, that's 10.6hrs. at 100, that's 8hrs. At 130mph (a nice cruise speed for my car) that's 6.1 hours. 6.1 hours sounds a lot better than 10.6 hours."
Right about the time I'd start trying it, is when I'd get pulled over. Since I was on I-10 in fuckin' Wyle E. Coyote country, where the cactus outnumber the humans 100000:1 they were ok with my 5mph over. They just wanted to remind me to slow down. I'm good with that. I like warnings a lot more than tickets.
Oh, and if you try to figure out my average speed for the drive (41mph), I did stop in El Paso for 12 hours, and had 6 fuel stops (4 of them I was kinda fuzzy from lack of sleep and a constant caffeine buzz). I also hit shitty traffic in San Antonio, and tried to stop in Bum-stick Arizona for cigarettes (couldn't find my brand), and again in Phoenix (again, couldn't find my brand). I was twitching by the time I got to California, and it was 2 days to find a store that had my brand.
It's an interesting drive. Everyone should try it once by themselves, just to say they did it.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
My experience with 3 different Internet connection providers has been that NONE of them had stated support for Linux. Linux as an unsupported platform for [fill in ISP here] is usually not a technology issue; rather, it's a tech support issue. Their techsupport staff needs to be able to walk Joe Average through 10 easy steps of "click this, click that, etc..." Troubleshooting via Linux would require one of two things: A) Far more complex read-response scripts. Or B) Far more educated techsupport staff. Neither seems likely to happen.
My latest foray into high(ish) speed access at home resulted in yet another frustrating conversation: (I suspect the situation is similar for cell-based access.)
What's my PPoE connection information?
Huh? I need to login to your PC to complete the setup.
No you don't, I just need the connection information to put in my firewall.
The firewall is on your PC. It doesn't matter.
No, the firewall is a dedicated piece of hardware.
Sir, if you'll just let me use your computer...
[I log him into a linux shell...]
Uhhhh, we only support Windows. I don't think this computer can connect to the Internet. Has it logged into the Internet before?
[rant]Why does everyone think you log-on, log-into, or log-onto the friggin Internet?!?[/rant]
The un-supporting meat bags answering the phones have NO idea what a default gateway is (nevermind the knuckle-draggers they send to connect it), yet they are responsible for troubleshooting network connectivity! That is why so few service providers "support" Linux. The sad thing is, they could really save themselves a lot of grief if they would just put the 4 or 5 nuggets of useful information we need in the initial welcome e-mail. Instead, they bury the meaningful info in 40 pages of screen-by-screen click fests. Finally, on page 34 I find what I'm looking for: The IP of their DNS server! Yipee! Now it's back to my welcome e-mail to search for my login ID amongst 6 pages of marketing bullshit.
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
I'm in the UK and use the Vodafone 3G card. Pretty easy to set up (PPP) and it downloads at 400 Kbit/sec ! latency is acceptable as well. OS is Linux Ubuntu.