5 Attachment(s)
HOWTO: Cricket Wireless A600 & UM185C Broadband Modem
Easy Method for Installing (pre-compiled debs):
Attached are the debs and a flipflop.sh to get this working do the following -
Step 1:
Download the .deb file for your selected architecture (32bit or 64bit) && install it
Step 2:
Download the flipflop.sh (for the A600) or the cricketum185c.sh (for the UM185C),
A600 Now right click on the file and select "properties". Click over to the "permissions" tab, and check the box "allow executing file as a program". Now double click it and select "Run", enter your password. Wait a few moments and poof! Your 3g modem should now be appearing in your network manager.
UM185C Now we just need to execute the cricketum185c.sh, it is in the directory of files you extracted, by running the following:
Code:
sudo ./cricketum185c.sh
(Please note you need to first make this file executable by running
Code:
chmod +x cricketum185c.sh
Notes:
On Ubuntu 9.04 and earlier. You will need to run the .sh file every time you connect your modem. Starting with 9.10 the networkmanager auto detects when a modem that has already been attached gets connected and it takes care of "flipping" for you after the first time.
Before this guide will work for you, you do need to load the device on a Windows/Mac system and install the software for the device and activate it. (I have a Windows VM for just such occasions, it worked fine)
Installing from Source (A600 Only):
This is a quick how to, for getting the latest Cricket Wireless 3g Modem working under Ubuntu (with out first booting into Windows). I've spent the better part of 4 days trying to get this little bugger to work under Ubuntu natively, so I figured I would share my findings so other people do not have to go through the same head ache.
This has been tested under Ubuntu 8.10 32bit & 64bit as well as Jaunty(9.04) 32bit and 64bit and Karmic 32bit, how ever I do not see any reason why it should not work under any distro/version of *buntu.
Step 1:
Download the archive attached to this post and extract the contents to your preferred directory.
Step 2:
Open up terminal and use cd to change into the directory of the extracted files.
32 bit Users - Install usb_modeswitch with the following command: 64 bit Users - We need to recompile modeswitch to work on the 64bit platform. Run the following commands in terminal to do so
Code:
sudo apt-get install build-essential libusb-dev
rm usb_modeswitch
make
sudo make install
Step 3:
Plug in your Cricket A600 to an open USB port, wait a moment for it to be detected as a CD drive/the auto play menu to pop up. Now we just need to execute the flipflop.sh, it is in the directory of files you extracted, by running the following: (Please note you need to first make this file executable by running
Code:
chmod +x flipflop.sh
After running the flipflop.sh you need to wait about 12 seconds (while it works it's magic) and then poof! Your Cricket device should now appear in your network manager as a connection option.
Notes:
You will need to each time you attach the device for it to work.
Before this guide will work for you, you do need to load the device on a Windows/Mac system and install the software for the device and activate it. (I have a Windows VM for just such occasions, it worked fine)
I played around with udev some trying to automate this process when you play the device in, but I could not get it to work properly, if someone smarter/experienced than myself would like to figure that out I'd be more than happy to add it to this guide.
Trouble Shooting -
If this guide does not work for you try first opening up the flipflop.sh and increasing the sleep time from 10 seconds to 20 - some systems require a longer delay.
UPDATE/FYI:
I no longer have my cricket A600 and I have not tried it under 10.04 (which people seem to be having issues with) feel free to post in the thread and hopefully someone else will be of help - but for best results I suggest using Ubuntu 9.10 or older with the modem.
~Jeff Hoogland
Re: HOWTO: Cricket Wireless A600 Broadband Modem
That worked perfectly, thanks very much!
Re: HOWTO: Cricket Wireless A600 Broadband Modem
Hopefully someone can help me finish this upu today. I followed this guide and it all worked, but in the messages file, when I try to connect, this is the output:
Code:
May 7 15:21:58 acer pppd[12028]: Plugin /usr/lib/pppd/2.4.4/nm-pppd-plugin.so loaded.
May 7 15:21:58 acer pppd[12028]: pppd 2.4.5 started by root, uid 0
May 7 15:21:58 acer pppd[12028]: Removed stale lock on ttyACM0 (pid 11735)
May 7 15:21:58 acer pppd[12028]: Using interface ppp0
May 7 15:21:58 acer pppd[12028]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/ttyACM0
May 7 15:22:02 acer pppd[12028]: No CHAP secret found for authenticating us to
May 7 15:22:03 acer pppd[12028]: CHAP authentication succeeded
May 7 15:22:03 acer pppd[12028]: CHAP authentication succeeded
May 7 15:22:03 acer pppd[12028]: local IP address 10.99.142.161
May 7 15:22:03 acer pppd[12028]: remote IP address 172.28.5.5
May 7 15:22:03 acer pppd[12028]: primary DNS address 172.28.221.53
May 7 15:22:03 acer pppd[12028]: secondary DNS address 172.28.221.54
May 7 15:22:14 acer pppd[12028]: Terminating on signal 15
May 7 15:22:14 acer pppd[12028]: Connect time 0.2 minutes.
May 7 15:22:14 acer pppd[12028]: Sent 0 bytes, received 0 bytes.
I am running ubuntu 9.04 on an Acer Aspire One Netbook.
Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks beastrace91 for your help over PM.
Re: HOWTO: Cricket Wireless A600 Broadband Modem
As your issue does not pertain to making Ubuntu see the device (which is the point of this guide) maybe posting a new topic describing your issue would be a better idea and would keep this one on topic.
~Jeff
Re: HOWTO: Cricket Wireless A600 Broadband Modem
Jeff,
Thank you very much for this great HOWTO.
I used it at installing SAMSUNG SGH-Z810 modem under ubuntu-9.04.
I failed with my acer notebook first time. But I found a 'solution' later. I modified your flipflop.sh. I repeated the first two lines of your flipflop.sh at the end of the script. Then I inserted another 'sleep 10' after the third line. I am still not sure if all these changes are necessary, but it WORKS for me this way!
Thanks again
Jozsef
Re: HOWTO: Cricket Wireless A600 Broadband Modem
Good to know :)
I wish these major companies would take the short bit of extra time themselves and make their devices detect properly on Linux in the first place as it does not need the drivers that are on the auto play USB :/
Ahh well in the mean time modeflip works just fine.
As a side note for ease of use I add an icon to my internet tab in my menu and add an exception using sudo visudo so I do not need to enter my root password to flip my device.
~Jeff
Re: HOWTO: Cricket Wireless A600 Broadband Modem
Dang!, it does not work for me. I am using Ubuntu 9.04 and this does not work anymore. The USB device gets online when I execute the ./flipflop.sh script but, it never appears in the Network Manager... Even if I reboot my laptop it does not work, because my laptop reboots the USB modem as well :( and it gets offline once again. I am using the cricket A600 USB Modem device.
In additon, I have another laptop which does not reboot the USB device when rebooting the system (the USB modem does not get offline) and when I go back to Ubuntu, the Broadband USB device does appears in the Network Manager.
I tried to restart the Network interfaces but it does not solve the issue.
Please let me know if you guys know how to solve this...
thanks!
Re: HOWTO: Cricket Wireless A600 Broadband Modem
Can you please post what the flipflop.sh is out putting in terminal when you run it? I know on my one laptop I had to increase the sleep time in the script by about 5 seconds so it would have enough time for the device to fully "flip" before it runs the hard reset.
Like I said post the output and hopefully we can help you figure this out :)
~Jeff
Re: HOWTO: Cricket Wireless A600 Broadband Modem
Hi again!,
First off, thanks for your help Jeff...
There you have my output:
flipflop.sh
===================
* usb_modeswitch: tool for controlling "flip flop" mode USB devices
* Version 0.9.7 (C) Josua Dietze 2009
* Works with libusb 0.1.12 and probably other versions
Looking for target devices ...
Found devices in target mode or class (1)
Looking for default devices ...
Found default devices (1)
Found a default device NOT in target class mode
Prepare switching, accessing device 002 on bus 003 ...
Looking for active driver ...
OK, driver found ("usb-storage")
OK, driver "usb-storage" detached
Setting up communication with interface 0 ...
Trying to send the message to endpoint 0x08 ...
OK, message successfully sent
-> Run lsusb to note any changes. Bye
* usb_modeswitch: tool for controlling "flip flop" mode USB devices
* Version 0.9.7 (C) Josua Dietze 2009
* Works with libusb 0.1.12 and probably other versions
Looking for default devices ...
Found default devices (1)
Prepare switching, accessing device 003 on bus 003 ...
Resetting usb device .
OK, device was reset
-> Run lsusb to note any changes. Bye
lsusb
=============================
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 5986:0100 Acer, Inc OrbiCam
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 1f28:0020
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
As I told you before, this was working on Ubuntu 8.10 but stopped working after the 9.04 upgrade.
Regards.
Re: HOWTO: Cricket Wireless A600 Broadband Modem
Strange, are you running on 64bit or 32bit? I tested this on Ubuntu 9.04 NBR and it worked just fine. From the output of your flipflop.sh is it flipping/resetting properly so perhaps it is an issue with your network manager. Try removing the entry for the cricket device from your network manager (right click, edit connections, broadband tab, delete) and then hooking the device up and running flipflop.sh again.
Did u upgrade from 8.10 to 9.04 or did u do a fresh install?
~Jeff