Installing a Verizon Wireless EVDO Card in Ubuntu on a Lenovo T43 ThinkPad
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
My company gave me one of their Verizon Wireless PC5740 EVDO PCMCIA cards with a Windows CD to install VZAccess. My boss explained, "Just install the VZAccess software from the CD, put in the card and you should be all set!"
At the time, I hadn't let him in on the fact that I reformatted the hard drive on the company's Lenovo Thinkpad and installed Ubuntu Linux. I still have Windows XP Pro installed as a virtual machine but I have yet to figure out how to install the Verizon card onto the virtual machine.
So I installed it on Linux.
I'm going to give an overview, as I understand it, of what needs to be done to get it working. Unfortunately some of this information is specific to my hardware and OS versoin so you'll have to check some of the links at the bottom for information on other configurations.
From what I've seen, it's basically the same except with some linux versions, you need to patch the kernel in order to fix a bug that causes disconnects after a few minutes.
The Environment
Here is what I was working with:
o Lenovo ThinkPad T43 1875 N2U
o Ubuntu Feisty 7.04
o Verizon Wireless PC5740
Overview
Apparently like most EVDO cards, the PC5740 shows up as a USB PCMCIA host adapter to which a serial modem is attached. So here's an overview of what we're doing:
- Activate the card [in Windows]
- Install the drivers for the host controller
- Install the drivers for the serial modem
- Create the ppp configuration and chat script to use the modem
- Test the connection
- Add ppp0 to the list of interfaces
Activation
Unfortunately, I had to install the card on a Windows machine to activate the card. There really wasn't any way around this that I've found yet. Activate the card using the VZAccess software supplied with the card. It's pretty straight forward so I won't explain it.
Install Drivers
The OHCI is an open standard for allowing an operating system communicate a USB device. In this case, we're going to be installing the ohci-hcd module on Ubuntu with the following command:
Now we can plug in the card and install the usb serial modem drivers. These drivers require the exact model of the modem so before we install it, we will connect the card and and see what happens:
You'll see that the last line will show you that you have a vendor of "106c" and a product ID of "3701." This is the information we'll be supplying the usbserial module when we install it like so:
If you are like me, there will be an error saying:
FATAL: Error inserting usbserial
(/lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/kernel/drivers/usb/serial/usbserial.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)
But, itgnoring that you'll have a new device install that will show up under /dev/ttyACM0
PPP Configuration
PPP is the peer to peer tool to connect to an ISP over a dial up connection. In this case, we're going to configure it to use the USB serial modem to make a connection. First we need to create a new configuration profile under /etc/ppp/peers/ named 1xevdo and here is what goes in it:
If you look at the last line of that script you'll see a reference to a call script named 1xevdo_chat. Well here it is. Put that under /etc/ppp/peers and like it says, name it 1xevdo_chat.
Testing
So you've installed the device and created a PPP configuration to use it to connect to your ISP. Now it's time to test the configuration.
With any luck, you should get something like this:
The last part where it pulls an IP will take longer than the initial connection just like a normal internet connection.
Added the ppp0 to the list of interfaces
If you want to be able to issue the ifup ppp0 and ifdown ppp0 commands, just add the following lines to /etc/network/interfaces
Conclusions
That's how I was able to setup the card. BUT, if you have anything but a Lenovo T43 running Ubuntu 7.04, you may run into problems. Check out the links below because they were very helpful to me in the first place.
External Links
Ken Kinder - wrote a great howto that goes deeper into the subject.
OHCI on Wikipedia - good overview about what OCHI is and why you need it
Linux PPP HowTo - everyting you could want to know about ppp
My company gave me one of their Verizon Wireless PC5740 EVDO PCMCIA cards with a Windows CD to install VZAccess. My boss explained, "Just install the VZAccess software from the CD, put in the card and you should be all set!" At the time, I hadn't let him in on the fact that I reformatted the hard drive on the company's Lenovo Thinkpad and installed Ubuntu Linux. I still have Windows XP Pro installed as a virtual machine but I have yet to figure out how to install the Verizon card onto the virtual machine.
So I installed it on Linux. I'm going to give an overview, as I understand it, of what needs to be done to get it working. Unfortunately some of this information is specific to my hardware and OS versoin so you'll have to check some of the links at the bottom for information on other configurations.
From what I've seen, it's basically the same except with some linux versions, you need to patch the kernel in order to fix a bug that causes disconnects after a few minutes.
The Environment
Here is what I was working with:
o Lenovo ThinkPad T43 1875 N2U o Ubuntu Feisty 7.04 o Verizon Wireless PC5740
Overview
Apparently like most EVDO cards, the PC5740 shows up as a USB PCMCIA host adapter to which a serial modem is attached. So here's an overview of what we're doing:- Activate the card [in Windows]
- Install the drivers for the host controller
- Install the drivers for the serial modem
- Create the ppp configuration and chat script to use the modem
- Test the connection
- Add ppp0 to the list of interfaces
Activation
Unfortunately, I had to install the card on a Windows machine to activate the card. There really wasn't any way around this that I've found yet. Activate the card using the VZAccess software supplied with the card. It's pretty straight forward so I won't explain it.
Install Drivers
The OHCI is an open standard for allowing an operating system communicate a USB device. In this case, we're going to be installing the ohci-hcd module on Ubuntu with the following command:
Now we can plug in the card and install the usb serial modem drivers. These drivers require the exact model of the modem so before we install it, we will connect the card and and see what happens:
You'll see that the last line will show you that you have a vendor of "106c" and a product ID of "3701." This is the information we'll be supplying the usbserial module when we install it like so:
If you are like me, there will be an error saying:
FATAL: Error inserting usbserial
(/lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/kernel/drivers/usb/serial/usbserial.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)
But, itgnoring that you'll have a new device install that will show up under /dev/ttyACM0
PPP Configuration
PPP is the peer to peer tool to connect to an ISP over a dial up connection. In this case, we're going to configure it to use the USB serial modem to make a connection. First we need to create a new configuration profile under /etc/ppp/peers/ named 1xevdo and here is what goes in it:
If you look at the last line of that script you'll see a reference to a call script named 1xevdo_chat. Well here it is. Put that under /etc/ppp/peers and like it says, name it 1xevdo_chat.
Testing
So you've installed the device and created a PPP configuration to use it to connect to your ISP. Now it's time to test the configuration.
With any luck, you should get something like this:
The last part where it pulls an IP will take longer than the initial connection just like a normal internet connection.
Added the ppp0 to the list of interfaces
If you want to be able to issue the ifup ppp0 and ifdown ppp0 commands, just add the following lines to /etc/network/interfaces
Conclusions
That's how I was able to setup the card. BUT, if you have anything but a Lenovo T43 running Ubuntu 7.04, you may run into problems. Check out the links below because they were very helpful to me in the first place.
External Links
Ken Kinder - wrote a great howto that goes deeper into the subject.
OHCI on Wikipedia - good overview about what OCHI is and why you need it
Linux PPP HowTo - everyting you could want to know about ppp
<< Home