Category: Linux

Using Huawei E220 HSDPA modem in GNU/Linux

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you already know I got a mobile broadband connection. If not, that’s a solid reason to follow me on Twitter. Anyway! The modem I got is a Huawei E220, and I’m stoked to say it works flawlessly on GNU/Linux. I meant to write a blog post about it earlier, but I’ve been tied up with some projects alongside our local KDE dev, Siraj 🙂 (nothing KDE-related, though).

A few days ago, I came across a blog where the owner wrote about switching to GNU/Linux. One of his worries was getting his Huawei E220 to work on Linux. Sure, it’s a breeze, but I’d hate for a new Linux user to ditch it over a little hiccup with their 3G modem 😛 I left a comment on his blog, and by the time I was done, I’d basically written a full post on how to set it up. So, I figured I’d polish it up and share it here to help anyone else struggling with 3G on Linux. Here’s my mini tutorial – tweaked a bit to fit nicely.

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The E220 works perfectly with wvdial on Ubuntu Hardy Heron.
Here’s how to do it…
(1) Plug in the modem and run
sudo wvdialconf
(2) Then edit the wvdial.conf file…
sudo vim /etc/wvdial.conf Uncomment the Username and Password lines in wvdial.conf and add this to the end: “stupid mode = yes”
(3) Save the wvdial.conf file
(4) Run wvdial to connect 🙂

If you’re on Ubuntu 8.10, the Graphical Network Manager picks up the modem and hooks you up in seconds.

I usually use kppp on my Slackware setup, and it works great too. I like kppp better than wvdial since it even tracks the modem’s data usage.

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That’s it, folks! If you need help, I’m just a blog comment away!.. or hit me up with an @message on Twitter. Yep, I’m the seejay over there.

~SeeJay

Get Atheros 5007eg working under GNU/Linux

The Wi-Fi card in my new ASUS laptop is an Atheros 5007EG, and unlike Intel’s Wi-Fi cards, it doesn’t seem to work “out of the box” with any Linux distros 😦 You’d think MadWifi tools would fix it, right? That’s what I assumed too, until I tried it. I found tons of success stories online about MadWifi working with Atheros 5006 cards, but the 5007EG is pretty new and doesn’t seem to play nice with MadWifi yet.
After typing sudo iwconfig in the Terminal, here’s what I got…

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

So, I decided to try another route; using the Windows driver with “ndiswrapper.” After a few hours of tinkering ;), I got the Wi-Fi up and running 😀 The first thing that hit me was, “I’ve got to blog this so no one else wastes time figuring out how to get Atheros 5007 working on Linux!” 🙂

Here’s how I got the Atheros 5007EG working on Ubuntu. I’m also planning to write up a post for Slackware once I get some free time to test it out 😀 Alright, here’s what I did.

First, go to System >> Administration >> Restricted Drivers Manager, disable HAL, and then reboot.

Next, install ndiswrapper from Synaptic. You’ll need these three packages:
ndisgtk
ndiswrapper-common
ndiswrapper-utils-1.9

Once ndiswrapper is installed, you’ll need the Windows driver for your Wi-Fi card. I had the Atheros 5007EG driver on a DVD that came with my laptop, but if you don’t have it, you can grab the right one from the Atheros website at http://www.atheros.cz/.

Open the Terminal, navigate to the folder with your Windows driver (the .inf file) for your Atheros card, and type:
ndiswrapper -i xxx.inf (replace “xxx” with the name of your .inf file).

Now, blacklist ath_pci. Type gksu gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist in the Terminal.

Add this line to the end of the file:

blacklist ath_pci

Then type ndiswrapper -l to list the installed drivers. If it’s working, you should see something like this:

net5211 : driver installed
device (168C:001C) present (alternate driver: ath_pci)

Run these commands in the Terminal, one after the other:

sudo depmod -a

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

sudo ndiswrapper -m

Then type gksudo gedit /etc/modules, add ndiswrapper to the end of the file, and save it.

That’s it, folks! 😀 Reboot your machine, and you can check if the Wi-Fi’s working (spoiler: it is!) by typing sudo iwconfig in the Terminal. Here’s what I got after the process:

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

ath0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

Alright, have fun! Feel free to let me know if you run into any issues or if anything in this post isn’t clear.
~SeeJay

Firefox Inside Firefox

Hellow Fellows!
You know that many of us spend lot of our computing time on the internet and most of that time we use Firefox tabs to open all our favorite sites and services inside Firefox right?, yes, Gmail inside Ff, Yahoo inside Ff, ebay inside Ff, Banking inside Ff ect. ect. ect… With all these favorites inside Firefox, How about opening Firefox inside Firefox? Not bad ha? and its really easy too! just type in this url in a new tab in Firefox and there you go! Firefox inside Firefox!

chrome://browser/content/browser.xul

Disclaimer: I guarantee that this will work with Firefox. But I have no responsibility of any damage that cause Internet Explorer users by Using this with IE to Open Firefox inside IE 😆
C.J.

update: feel free to visit my new blog http://seejay.net for more Firefox tricks!