Meteor Broadband working on Ubuntu
April 6th, 2009 by Jason Roe. Post is filed under Technology.
I was interested to find out how to get Meteor Broadband to go working on Ubuntu. I found a number of threads on forums about the topic, but no one had found the answer yet.
Meteor don’t pitch this product as supported on Ubuntu / Linux.. but I found a number of blog/forum posts that suggest that the Huawei E180 usb modem used by Meteor works out of the box. The real question was .. once you had the device recognised, what configuration did you need to get it to work?
I offered €50.00 of my hard earned coffers to the person who could tell me how to get Meteor Broadband to go working (naively) on the Huawei E180 in Ubuntu.
Update .. I got it working!!
I hope this is of help to someone else..
I needed usb_modeswitch to enable the usb modem (see install) .. then I had to do a modprobe:
sudo /sbin/usb_modeswitch.sh
sudo lsusb
sudo /sbin/modprobe usbserial vendor=0×12d1 product=0×1003
Settings:
Within Network manager, under point to point connections:
Connection Type GPRS/UTMS
The APN (access point name) for meteor is broadband.mymeteor.ie – no username / password required.
Phone number is *99# (if even required)
My modem port is /dev/ttyUSB0
The strange thing is that the modem would not work until I topped up the phone and ran the installer on a windows PC. I’m not sure if it was the lack of funds or what .. but before I connected to a windows PC it couldn’t even make a connection.
While waiting check out ..
–
Contents of usb_modeswitch.sh:
#!/bin/sh
# close these FDs to detach from udev
exec 1<&- 2<&- 5<&- 7<&-
sh -c “sleep 4; /usr/bin/usb_modeswitch” &
exit 0
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April 6th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Yep plug and play, its integrated into the network-manager applet since 8.10 intrepid. Just plug it in click on the network icon and select mobile broadband then a wizard will appear with a list of networks. Just select the network from the list and it works. Easy. I know it works vodafone 3 and o2 but i havent seen meteor myself but it wouldnt take much to get it working.
April 7th, 2009 at 1:25 am
I got it working .. it only started working after I booted up on a windows pc and topped up!! Some weird quirks being that i needed USB_ModeSwitch and to do a modprobe before it works!
April 7th, 2009 at 1:54 am
Did my way work with meteor? It works with all the other networks.
April 7th, 2009 at 2:05 am
I didn’t have a mobile broadband option on the network-manager applet :/ the main issue seemed to be the mode switching and the modem not being recognised until I did a modprobe .. note to self, green light = bad .. blue light = good
April 7th, 2009 at 9:21 am
Great news, I can’t wait to get back home and try it.
Thanks.
April 7th, 2009 at 10:16 am
‘the modem would not work until I topped up the phone and ran the installer on a windows PC’ — that sounds like the Windows installer uploaded the firmware to the device. pretty common model nowadays (it makes the hardware cheaper to build)
April 7th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
That could be it .. I was thinking that the SIM had to be activated via the windows software before it could be used .. hard to tell! .. It was driving me nuts.
April 8th, 2009 at 12:02 am
Meteor broadband works by default in ubuntu. Its on the list of networks in ubuntu 9.04 and takes about 2 seconds to set up.
April 13th, 2009 at 10:48 am
I forgot to mention this was on ubuntu 8.10.
May 1st, 2009 at 5:23 pm
You have had broadband for a while now so is it actually any good ? Thinking of something like this myself but I have heard a lot of people are quite disappointed with the quality of their connections.
June 21st, 2009 at 1:41 am
Thought the eepc’s came with either XP, or Linux Xandros….Not sure bout Ubuntu etc Anyways got mine to work on white Xandros OS 512mb/4gb SSD. I skipped the USB_ModeSwitch/modprobe as device was picked up anyway.At the APN selection stage, my APN was prefilled as “isp.mymeteor” after I picked Ireland Meteor as ISP, and was crucial mistake. User/psswd were also prefilled. Device did search for network but crapped out at last minute, so I decided to enter “broadband.mymeteor.ie” as APN and blank out usrname/psswd, and it worked as you stated….Cheers mate
July 15th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Yes it’s working
I’m using Linux Mint 7
When you connect the usb modem it will ask you for your provider (meteor)
then you have to edit the connection, remove username/pwd
and instead of isp.mymeteor.ie just type broadband.mymeteor.ie
happy surfing!
September 24th, 2009 at 11:22 am
You guys are legends thanks.
After fumbling about for quite a while on ubuntu karmic, I noticed the alternative apn settings and username/password.
Online now and relieved to be, thanks.
I will report a bug on launchpad
October 17th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
I have had metoer broadband for over six months now. Lately the connection is becoming very weak at times. Sometimes it disconnects itself automatically. The light now switches regularly to green back to blue back to green again. It is very unreliable as it slows down so much it’s not worth the effort. Don’t know whats wrong as I was told was on the edge of the perefiary for coverage with meteor.
January 17th, 2010 at 11:09 pm
Hey Jason,
Just a quick tip. Ubuntu Karmic (9.10) has wizards for creating a connection to Meteor BTG that work well though you need to plug in the dongle before booting.
It connects fine but for some reason the DNS server settings were not automatically initialized correctly. Manually setting the DNS server to 212.129.64.220 (via Network Connection ->IPv4 Settings) fixed it. Oh, and don’t forget to also enter your PIN in the mobile broadband advanced settings tab.