Using Verizon V620 Broadband Card?

[pychen]

Hi there, I am new to the Gentoo / Linux environment, and I am loving it more and more by the minute. I have been able to solve most of the issues I have encountered through the generous people of this forum, and I have one more that I wish you all can help me with.

I just got the Verizon V620 broadband card from work, and I really need help to get this to work on my laptop.

IBM Thinkpad T41p
Pentium M, 1700MHz
Linux gentoo 2.6.10-gentoo-r6
KDE

Any suggestions or help is greatly appreciated. TIA.

[Kryptos13]

It can be done, as I did it about two months ago. I had a loaner card from Verizon and got it working great on a T40.

Unfortunately, I don't have the card or that laptop any longer, so I'll be going from memory, a few related Internet documents, and a few notes I found scattered in my den.

First of all, the card has to be installed and activated on a Windows laptop. Borrow one if you must. Make sure you have the phone number and password to the card's account (I think they're all vzw).

I'm assuming, since you're new to Gentoo, you might have built from a 2005.0 iso. That's a good thing, as you'll be running udev (what I used on that box).

1) Emerge ppp and pcmcia-cs (and coldplug and hotplug) if you haven't already.

2) Make sure your kernel has the following:
usb ohci
ppp (with the options under it, ESPECIALLY the serial tty one)
pcmcia and cardbus support

3) Insert the card into the slot Type in:
cat /proc/bus/usb/devices

And look for the card. It should show up as a Novatel line if I remember correctly.

4) You will need the vendor and product information. I found mine written as vendor=0x1410 product=0x1110.

5) Issue this command:

modprobe usbserial vendor=0x1410 product=0x1110
(change if needed)

6) Type dmesg. You should see that the modem has connected to /dev/ttyUSB0 and ttyUSB1. We're interested in USB0, if memory serves.

If the connection wasn't made, do this and try again:

mknod /dev/ttyUSB0 c 188 0
mknod /dev/ttyUSB1 c 188 1

7) The next step is to make a couple of pppd scripts. I had tweaked a couple of great ones, but forgot to copy them before giving that machine back! I know I modified a couple of things based on the Linux Unwired book. I'll check that when I get home and maybe modify the following. But for now, this might work:

Make a new file in /etc/ppp/peers/. Call it V620.

-detach
ttyUSB0
115200
debug
noauth
defaultroute
usepeerdns
user telephonenumber@vzw3g.com
show-password
crtscts
lock
connect '/usr/sbin/chat -v -t3 -f /etc/ppp/peers/V620_chat'

Obviously, your 10-digit phone number goes in front of the @vzw3g.com.

Now make the V620_chat file:

'' 'AT'
'OK' 'ATE0V1&F&D2&C1&C2S0=0'
'OK' 'ATE0V1'
'OK' 'ATS7=60'
'OK' 'ATDT#777'

Again, I'll check and see if I can remember what I did to make this script stay connected flawlessly.

Add this to /etc/ppp/pap-secrets:

yourphonenumber@vzw3g.com * vzw

8. Finally, type this in:

pppd call V620

The terminal should stay open, showing you connection activity. You should be online.

9) For future connections, you'll have to insert the card, type the modprobe usbserial vendor=0x1410 product=0x1110 command, and then the pppd call V620.

My apologies for not crediting all the sources that I compiled hints from. There were no V620 docs online, and I had to incorporate hints from other types of cards. If I recall, Phil Karn's work was very helpful in addition to the Linux Unwired book.

If anyone spots holes in my memory, feel free to post. I'll be sure to check and see if there's anything I can clarify.

Getting that card to work took a lot of hours (probably more hours than I actually got to use it later!). Hope I can spare someone that kind of agony
_________________
A true oxymoron: using Windows to do security work....

[pychen]

Thank you so much for the great info. I was away for a while, just had a chance to read this board. I will definitely try it as soon as I can. Thanks agian.

[pychen]

Keep on getting this error when doing the modprobe.

[projectle]

That means that you either do not have the module compiled (most likey the senario), or the module is incompatable with your kernel version (could be if you recently upgraded from an older kernel to the 2.6.12 branch)

So, prysically check to see that you have the modules in the directory.
If you do, then attempt to re-compile them and re-modprobe to see if it works.
If not, then hold down the following keys...
W, F, the number two, the space bar, while typing out "Genesha is Great!" and tapping on the Escape key for twenty minutes.

[projectle]

What do you need to emerge to get the /usr/bin/chat file?

As there is nothing mentioned in the guide, I would assume that this is something that comes in most distros however under a clean Gentoo install with only the things mentioned, I am a little stuck as the connect script fails to locate /usr/bin/chat.

Any ideas?

[ikkyu]

Of note, I had to turn on OHCI HCD to get the usb hub to show up.