Skip to main content

Ubuntu Blackberry Tethering

Tethering my modem on ubuntu was one thing I was postponing to do for quite a while. One of the reasons for not attempting it was that on windows too, it did not happen quite easily. And I was n't going to kid myself to believe that it will be breeze on Ubuntu. The ease of tethering on the same laptop with iphone took me by surprise today - more about that later. So, today is the day to try it on my blackberry...

First some versions etc. so that you know if this is a good match to your situation...

  • Ubuntu Lucid Dev (kernel - 2.6.32-15-generic)
  • pppd (version 2.4.5)
  • berry4all (latest from berry4all.com)
  • Blackberry Curve 8320
  • T-mobile unlimited data plan (Enterprise)

Installation:
  • No brainer.. just follow http://www.berry4all.com/install. 
  • sudo apt-get install python libusb-dev ppp python-usb python-wxgtk2.8 
Last one is for GUI and I dont think thats an optional package even if you are using a netbook. You want to make life easier - Don't you?

Using it:
  • tar -zxvf bbtether.tgz
  • cd bbtether
  • gedit vi conf/tmobile
  • uncomment replacedetaultroute. This did not seem to work for me. Fiddling with this option might be helpful.
  • sudo ./berry4all.sh
  • Add device password in the preferences window
  • Connect the blackberry using the USB cable
  • Fire Connect from the menu option
You should see connected at the end of the output message.
You can also verify if you can connected by typing "ifconfig" on command line and see if there is a ppp0 interface in the output
ping google.com

Troubleshooting:
  • Disconnect your wireless or ethernet and try again if you are connected by not able to browse any sites.
  • Unplug your battery, let it drain and retry. This helps on Windows also.
I also tried...
  • Barry from http://www.netdirect.ca/software/packages/barry. This did not quite work for me.
To Do:
  • Tether using bluetooth. Will retry this sometime later.
  • Create a desktop launcher to fire the GUI.
Summary:
  • Tethering blackberry using berry4all was very simple
  • GUI is simple and optimal

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Connecting Ubuntu to Belkin N+ router USB drive

I recently purchased Belkin's N+ Wireless router. It worked great. Easy to set up and comes up LEDs that should help troubleshoot where the problem is. One of the other features is that it comes with a mount point for USB drive. This is good since it just provides an easy way to create a local NAS. You keep the drive in one place and access it from any of your laptops. Connecting it from Windows is easy. The usual \\belkin N+\Drive Name works. However, on linux, it did not work out of box. Looked like trouble with space in the name at first. But when I tried with IP address and it did work. I inferred space may not be the issue. I tried few suggestions from ... http://alittlecharm.blogspot.com/2009/06/connecting-ubuntu-to-belkin-n-usb-drive.html .. this did not work for me. Not as it is, at least. One reason i avoided to implement these suggestion as is that it required to install smb4k which would have also installed base kde and I wasn't in big favor of installing the whole t...

CoLinux - Setting it up on Windows XP

About this article I wanted to write an article thats quick and simple get colinux working on a Windows Host. I have skipped details that can be referred elsewhere in the spirit of keeping this article simple. The infrastructure used: Laptop: Toshiba Portege A 200 Host OS: Windows XP Guest OS: Ubuntu 8.04 (alpha 6) What is Colinux Colinux or Cooperative linux is an easy way to run Windows and Linux simultaneously on the same machine without the hassle of partitioning. More at ... http://colinux.org/ Preparing Setup Space Requirements Ensure you have ample space on your drive depending on how full you want to enjoy linux. Below numbers may help you decide if you have enough space to set up colinux: Bare minimum non-gui colinux: 2G Gnome/Kde based colinux: 5G For use as full time OS: 10G+ Software needed Qemu QEMU Accelerator Module Colinux Wincap Ubuntu or any linux distribution of your choice. I used ubuntu for this article. And you should download the .iso file f...

VirtualBox to KVM Migration

What: Virtualbox is a nice desktop virtualization software from erstwhile Sun Inc.  I used the personal use as well as open edition of it for quite sometime. However, could not resist the temptation to migrate to KVM, given its increasing roars in the virtualization space - both for desktop as well as server side. Not having a good tool to manage the VMs was a shortcoming of KVM for sometime. However, with Virt-Manger, this seems to have changed quite a lot. And so I started to migrate my windows image to KVM based. Source: Host OS: Ubuntu 10.04 Virtualization tool: VirtualBox Guest OS: Windows XP Sp3 Target:  Host OS: Ubuntu 10.04 Virtualization tool: KVM Guest OS: Windows XP Sp3 objective is migrate this guest image to KVM so that the migration is seemless. How: Pre-planning: Shut off windows XP gracefully. It probably might make a difference. But in anycase, will be a good idea rather than land up in surprise You need reasonable space. nearly 3 times of ...