Today I finally managed to get the E800 ExpressCard provided by BASE working with Linux. I installed the latest Version (0.8) of Klaas van Gends umtsmon, and configured it to use 3G instead of GPRS. The problem that kept me from bringing the configuration to work until today was that two of the tree USB serial devices (/dev/ttyUSB0 and /dev/ttyUSB2) are only available for a couple of seconds.

But now I figured out that those will stay available once you disable the usb-storage part of the card right after the card is initialized.

To provide Windows drivers on the fly, the E800 has a build in, read only USB stick like device, where the manual (PDF) and the setup program are stored. Once that device gets mounted, the card is not usable as a modem anymore.

While writing this blog post I just found out that the ExpressCard slot also provides a USB interface, which explains the device tree seen in the following picture. There you can see that the modem hardware is detected as a Huawei E220 and is not using the PCI Express Bus at all. It is rather using the same USB Controller as the Infrared Remote Port of my MacBook Pro.

When thinking about this further, I figured it would be possible to build a ExpressCard to USB adapter – and after some googling I found one that is even said to work with the E800. Engagded also reviewed one of those devices some time ago. I wonder that some plastic and connections from pin 34, 36 and 38 to a USB cable are still worth more than $ 30.

The steps to bring an E800 to work in a current Ubuntu Laptop are the following (this will only work if you are not using a USB storage device at the same time).

• Register the USB serial modul to handle the Huawei card

sudo modprobe usbserial vendor=0x12d1 product=0x1001

• Append the above line to your /etc/rc.local (without “sudo”)
• Plug in the device
• Try running the following command every second until no error is returned

sudo chmod a+rw /dev/ttyUSB{0..2}; sudo rmmod usb-storage

• Run umtsmon (try with sudo in case it gets stuck)
• Configure your connection and press the connect button

As umtsmon is a QT program, I think this would be a nice project for pyGTK.

Last night I could finally finish the 0.8 release of SettingsGUI. The touch based application for Openmoko does now feature a configuration interface for Bluetooth Personal Area Networks. After setting up such a Network (touching the “Connect” button on both ends) I could get two Neo1973 phones to communicate with each other.

SettingsGUI will use the last byte of the 6 bytes long Bluetooth Address as fourth number in its IP Address. That way most devices will reach each other without any further configuration.

Thanks to Professor Dr. Rüdiger Weis who privately financed the second Neo1973 as our university does not seem to be able to equip students with GSM capable hardware.

In the picture you can see the two Neo1973 (GTA01) with SettingsGUI running. Also I could successfully test a configure where the default gateway points to my Laptop, so that ip-forwarding would work. That way you can surf the Web using Bluetooth on Openmoko. Bluetooth 2.0 can reach a transfer speed of about 2 MBit/s which is about as fast as DSL, so it is fun to use.

Since last week SettingsGUI and the three other tools I wrote for Openmoko are part of the Moko Underground movement at neo1973-germany.de where they finally found a SVN home.

I would be happy about any kind of feedback regarding SettingsGUI.

Since Monday I’m back from a fishing trip to Southern Norway. A few days there can be so relaxing. The landscape in Norway is just stunning.

In the picture you can see the Lista Fjord on a foggy morning.

On arrival in Berlin I found my server being down for several days. As it turned out the housing provider somehow disconnected it from the Internet. An hour after calling them, it was reachable again and I found the machine running the way I left it. (no reboot at all…, I wonder how that could happen.)

After documenting some code for my Master Thesis during the Trip, I am now finally taking the time to finish SettingsGUI Verion 0.8, so stay tuned. ;-)