Using 3G/UMTS in Mauritius

After some conversation, threads in online forum and mailing lists I thought about writing this article on how to setup, configure and use 3G/UMTS connections on Linux here in Mauritius. Personally, I can only share my experience with Emtel Ltd. but try to give some clues about how to configure Orange as well.

Emtel 3G/UMTS surf stick

Emtel provides different surf sticks from Huawei. Back in 2007, I started with an E220 that wouldn't run on Windows Vista either. Nowadays, you just plug in the surf stick (ie. E169) and usually the Network Manager will detect the new broadband modem. Nothing to worry about. The Linux Network Manager even provides a connection profile for Emtel here in Mauritius and establishing the Internet connection is done in less than 2 minutes... even quicker.

Using wvdial

Old-fashioned Linux users might not take Network Manager into consideration but feel comfortable with wvdial. Although that wvdial is primarily used with serial port attached modems, it can operate on USB ports as well. Following is my configuration from /etc/wvdial.conf:

[Dialer Defaults]
Phone = *99#
Username = emtel
Password = emtel
New PPPD = yes
Stupid Mode = 1
Dial Command = ATDT

[Dialer emtel]
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Baud = 3774000
Init2 = ATZ
Init3 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Init4 = AT+cgdcont=1,"ip","web"
ISDN = 0
Modem Type = Analog Modem

The values of user name and password are optional and can be configured as you like. In case that your SIM card is protected by a pin - which is highly advised, you might another dialer section in your configuration file like so:

[Dialer pin]
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Init1 = AT+CPIN=0000

This way you can "daisy-chain" your command to establish your Internet connection like so:

wvdial pin emtel

And it works auto-magically.
Depending on your group assignments (dialout), you might have to sudo the wvdial statement like so:

sudo wvdial pin emtel

Orange parameters

As far as I could figure out without really testing it myself, it is also necessary to set the Access Point (AP) manually with Orange. Well, although it is pretty obvious a lot of people seem to struggle. The AP value is "orange".

[Dialer orange]
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Baud = 3774000
Init2 = ATZ
Init3 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Init4 = AT+cgdcont=1,"ip","orange"
ISDN = 0
Modem Type = Analog Modem

And you are done.

Official Linux support from providers

It's just simple: Forget it!

The people at the Emtel call center are completely focused on the hardware and Mobile Connect software application provided by Huawei and are totally lost in case that you confront them with other constellations. For example, my wife's netbook has an integrated 3G/UMTS modem from Ericsson. Therefore, no need to use the Huawei surf stick at all and of course we use the existing software named Wireless Manager instead of. Now, imagine to mention at the help desk: "Ehm, sorry but what's Mobile Connect?"

And Linux after all might give the call operator sleepless nights... Who knows?

Anyways, I hope that my article and configuration could give you a helping hand and that you will be able to connect your Linux box with 3G/UMTS surf sticks here in Mauritius.

Using ext4 in VMware machine

First of all, using a journaling filesystems like NTFS, ext4, XFS, or JFS (not to name all of them) is a very good idea and nowadays unthinkable not to do. Linux offers a good variety of different option as journaling filesystem for your system. Since years I am using SGI's XFS and I am pretty confident with stability, performance and liability of the system. In earlier years I had to struggle with incompatibilities between XFS and the boot loader. Using an ext2 formatted /boot solved this issue. But, wow, that is ages ago!

Lately, I had to setup a fresh Lucid Lynx (Ubuntu 10.04 LTS) system for a change of our internal groupware / messaging system. Therefore, I fired up a new virtual machine with almost standard configuration in VMware Server and run through our network-based PXE boot and installation procedure. At a certain step in this process, Ubuntu asks you about the partitioning of your hard drive(s). Honestly, I have to say that only out of curiousity I sticked to the "default" suggestion and gave my faith and trust into the Ubuntu installation routine... Resulting to have an ext4 based root mount point ( / ). The rest of the installation went on without further concerns or worries.

Note:
I really can't remember why I chose to go away from my favourite...
Well, it should turn out to be the wrong decision after all.

Ok, let's continue the story about ext4 in a VMware based virtual machine. After some hours installing additional packages and configuring the new system using LDAP for general authentication and login, I had an "out-of-the-box" usable enterprise messaging system based on Zarafa 6.40 Community Edition inclusive proper SSL-based Webaccess interface and Z-Push extension for ActiveSync with my Nokia mobile. Straightforward and pretty nice for the time spent on the setup.

Having priority on other tasks I let the system just running and didn't pay any further attention at all. Until I run into an upgrade of "Mail for Exchange" on Symbian OS. My mobile did not bother me at all with the upgrade and everything went smooth, but trying to re-establish the ActiveSync connection to the Zarafa messaging system resulted in a frustating situation. So, I shifted my focus back to the Linux system and I was amazed to figure out that the root had been remounted readonly due to hard drive failures or at least ext4 reported errors.

Firing up Google only confirmed my concerns and it seems that using ext4 for VMware based virtual machines does not look like a stable and reliable candidate to me. You might consider reading those external resources:

ext4 fs corruption under VMWare Server 2.01
Bug #389555 - ext4 filesystem corruption

Well, I learned my lesson and ext{2|3|4} based filesystems are not going to be used on any of my Linux systems or customer installations in the future.

Addendum: I did not try this setup in other virtualization environments like VirtualBox, qemu, kvm, Xen, etc.

Troubleshooting VMware on Ubuntu

Summary of different problems while using VMware products on Ubuntu. This article is going to be updated from time to time with new information about running VMware products more or less smoothly on Ubuntu.

Following are links to existing articles:

• Running VMware Player on Linux (xubuntu Hardy Heron)
• Running VMware Server on Linux (version 1.0.6 on xubuntu)
• Using ext4 in VMware machine

VMware mouse grab/ungrab problem

(Source: LinuxInsight)

Upgrading GTK library in Ubuntu since Karmic Koala gives you a strange mouse behaviour. Even if you have "Grab when cursor enters window" option set, VMware won't grab your pointer when you move mouse into the VMware window. Also, if you use Ctrl-G to capture the pointer, VMware window will release it as soon as you move mouse around a little bit. Quite annoying behavior...

Fortunately, there's a simple workaround that can fix things until VMware resolves incompatibilities with the new GTK library. VMware Workstation ships with many standard libraries including libgtk, so the only thing you need to do is to force it to use it's own versions. The simplest way to do that is to add the following line to the end of the /etc/vmware/bootstrap configuration file and restart the Workstation.

export VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_GTK="force"

The interface will look slightly odd, because older version of GTK is being used, but at least it will work properly.

Note: After upgrading a new Linux kernel, it is necessary to compile the VMware modules, this requires to temporarily comment the export line in /etc/vmware/bootstrap.

Install Adobe AIR on Ubuntu/Linux

Since quite some time Adobe Technologies released the Linux version of Adobe AIR to bring web applications and widgets to your desktop. Installing new applications on a Linux system is not always as easy as switching the computer on. The following instructions might be helpful to install Adobe AIR on any Linux system.

First of all, get the latest installer of Adobe AIR from http://get.adobe.com/air/ - as of writing this article the file name is AdobeAIRInstaller.bin. Save the download in your preferred folder.

Now, there are two ways to run the installer - visual style or console style.

Visual Installation

Launch your favorite or standard file manager like thunar or nautilus and browse to the folder where the AdobeAIRInstaller.bin has been saved.

• Right click on the file and choose 'Properties' in the context menu
• Set 'Execute' permissions and confirm modifications with OK
• Rename file into AdobeAIRInstaller
• Double click and follow the instructions

Using the console

• Open a terminal like xterm
• Change into the directory where you stored the download
• Run this command:
  [code]chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin[/code]
• Now run this command:
  [code]sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin[/code]

The normal installer will open, install it. From now whenever you download a .air file, just double click it and it will be installed.

Troubleshooting

In case that the installation does not start properly, try to install via console. This gives you more details about the reasons. Should you run into something like this:

[code]AdobeAIRInstaller.bin: 1: Syntax error: "(" unexpected[/code]

Double check the execute permission of the installer file and try again.