Ive been trying to get the HUAWEI E1550 dongle working with my Debian (lenny) installation all day with little success. My first problem was that the dongle would show up as a USB drive and not a modem and required modem-switch to be run to make it show up as a modem on /dev/ttyUSB0.
I couldn’t get modem-switch to compile because it needs udev 1.45 and lenny only has 1.41. Luckily I found a usb_modeswitch which would compile easily enough and does pretty much a similar job. My next issue was that the H flag on usb_modeswitch for HUAWEI didnt work. However, I found on the web these config lines to stick in /etc/usb_modeswitch.conf which seem to work just fine and removes the need for the -H switch.
DefaultVendor = 0×12d1
DefaultProduct = 0×1446
MessageEndpoint = 0×01
MessageContent = “55534243000000000000000000000011060000000000000000000000000000″
Upon running usb_modeswitch it now switched my dongle on. I installed wvdial and used wvdialconf to configure the config file. I then adjusted the phone number in accordance with some forum entries I had read to read..
[Dialer Defaults]
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Stupid Mode = 1
Modem Type = Analog Modem
Phone = *99***#1
New PPPD = yes
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Username = guest
Password = guest
I was getting an “invalid dial command” message every time I tried to dial out.
–> WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.60
–> Cannot get information for serial port.
–> Initializing modem.
–> Sending: ATZ
ATZ
OK
–> Sending: ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
OK
–> Modem initialized.
–> Sending: ATDT*99***#1
–> Waiting for carrier.
ATDT*99***#1
ERROR
–> Invalid dial command.
–> Disconnecting at Thu Nov 12 11:09:27 2009
Turned out there was nothing wrong with my modem configuration – I’d just inserted the SIM card upside down. ooops. My main issue now is I dont have any 3g coverage where I am.
–> WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.60
–> Cannot get information for serial port.
–> Initializing modem.
–> Sending: ATZ
ATZ
OK
–> Sending: ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
OK
–> Modem initialized.
–> Sending: ATDT*99#
–> Waiting for carrier.
ATDT*99#
NO CARRIER
The conclusion is tho that the E1550 appears to work with linux – even if its a pain to setup. I wont know it works for sure till I can find somewhere with 3 coverage.
Tags: Debian, HUAWEI E1550, modem_switch, usb_modeswitch