Why Mobile Broadband so tricky

[mahaFEB]

Since the come out of Linux Mint 8 there have been many posts regarding troubles with mobile broadband modems, I have had troubles with them for my part. The point of this post is not to attempt and solve these troubles but to exemplify what a possible minefield it is. Above the years I have composed 3 dissimilar modems, and currently minute in time I have access to 7 dissimilar distributions, thus I thought I would compare and contrast, and this is the outcome. I attempted to tabulate it, but I don't perceive a method to post tables on the forum so if you wish to read it then it will have to be as it is.

[Maggie Q]

I also have the same crisis and I just have access to 3 modems, there are possibly 30 times that many in production or utilize immediately, I have access to just one PC there are lots of out there, and I have access to just 8 distro and there are more than 100 out there. So the difference in results that I get will be exaggerated lots of times over in daily use in the wild. Add to that the truth that mobile broadband is still very much a minority interest evaluated to wireless or Ethernet, and I guess you get the respond to the query I posed in the title. I am not defending that place though; I would like it to effort as much as the next man.

[AdityaR]

I have taken an attention in these modems; I currently have a Huawei e160 and 220; and a Vodafone K3565-Z and a ZTE MF636. I still locate the 220 the simplest to configure up. I pursued the many forums over the previous pair of months, and lots of distressed folks had gone ahead and distorted from 9.04 to 9.10 to discover their mobile broadband no extended worked. Even the teams at Betavine; who do the Vodafone Mobile Connect software, have spoken their disappointment. I am conspiracy at slight dissimilarities between the most recent distro: The Vodafone K3565-Z will not sprint on mandriva2010; it will sprint on fedora12 and opensuse 11.2; and I acquire the ZTE MF636 to effort with wvdial. I agreed with the opinions of the Betavine team, that the world will shift more towards mobile broadband and immense for Linux users if it is as easy as possible.

[AbhayD]

I utilized to use VMC a pair of years before, back after that it was just about the just way I could utilize my modem, but I have not utilized it a bit and it appears from what they say there is not much point at the moment. I as well utilized UMTSmon quite a bit last summer and had logical, though not general, success with it. Unluckily I read newly that growth on that project has more or fewer halted currently, so it does not seem like a fine extended term prospect. Still the software which gives the most success for me is USB_modeswitch, even though once more it is not a 100 percent achievement rate and it just supports certain modems. What plotting me is the truth that in older kernels I get every three to work devoid of extra software whereas in up to date kernels this does not occur e.g. the previous one I experienced SuSE Linux 11.2. I am convinced there is something in this even though I would not claim to know what it is. I would have idea that with such pioneering people as the creators of modeswitch, UMTSmon and VMC all working on it plus the kernel developers, this trouble should have been solved earlier period especially since, in my knowledge, around the 2.6.26/27 kernel they had it functioning anyhow.

[Suprakash]

CrunchBang Lite, kernel 2.6.26-13, USB-modeswitch not necessary, All 3 modems work. Notice the comparison to additional entries? Anything novel than 2.6.27 and it does not work as a minimum not completely and generally not devoid of USB_modeswitch. This is not the similar for everybody I know, but appears quite steady on my PC. I would like to know what changed later than the .27 kernel that caused this. Obviously it could only be a series of coincidences, but that is appearing less and less likely to me. By the way if you have a short spec PC which does not work with anything else I perform. Give CrunchBang Lite an attempt, it is a slight belter.