Huawei E3131 HiLink USB Dongle

[Xian Renegade]

Before I wiped Win8 from my Dell Inspiron, I tested the modem in both XFCE and Cinnamon via LiveDVD. It worked like a charm, also on a Macbook Pro with Mountain Lion on it.

I then installed Cinnamon 15 onto my flash drive and booted from there. The modem still worked.

I then installed Mint Cinnamon 15 to the hard drive and that is where my trouble started. All of a sudden, the very same modem would sometimes work when inserted and sometimes not. Even when it worked, it did not show up anywhere on the desktop, only in Network Connections.

Somewhere on these pages, I read about Modeswitch and followed the link to Zorin from here. I installed modeswitch and my dongle is now seen by Mint, it even appears on the desktop but the autorun file won't run and now the dongle doesn't work at all.

I then read about Sakis3G and tried that, also to no avail.

Help!! I am desperate....please

Thanx

[windumb]

did you check the result of the command lsusb (in terminal)? if not, please post.

also get the information of the command dpkg -s modemmanager (especially post the version)

i had a discussion and my own problems with mobile broadband modems. but in the end it all worked.

[Xian Renegade]

I have solved all issues by installing windows 8 again and everything now works, also the battery lasts more than twice as long.

[windumb]

the battery of your notebook lasts twice as long as it did using linux mint? that would be another interesting topic for windows vs. linux party but i cannot image that anyway...

well it's a sad thing you left linux behind ....giving no second chance...well ok then good luck with windows...

[Xian Renegade]

I am back on Mint as the sheer lunacy of Windows 8 "not being Windows" did not sit well with me. My latest install is Mint 15/64 MATE and my Huawei E3131 works like a charm. Dongle also connects automatically and all is well. The only downside being the fan that is running more often that in Windows 8. The upside is that the USB ports get full power and everything works fine. I have found in Windows 8 that USB devices get throttled on wattage, meaning that some devices malfunctioned from time to time.

Another Linux deficiency has been adddresed and this has made my return viable. Sync between phone and laptop http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=147100

[windumb]

Well, every OS has its both sides...The whole UNiX/Linux World seems to be the better, more individual way with lots of options to choose from. So it's more like the "computer universe for pros" where you can get deep down to the core...like you mentioned the USB control: you even can modify/change your kernel version to get probably more influence on that behavior...try to get some more information on that and build "your system"

On the other hand one of the biggest problems is the struggles with drivers (for market reasons, not a linux fault itself of course, but improving too) and sometimes comfortable software (often only little but well-known apps from windows) that keeps people away from changing their OS...a further problem is that important bugs sometimes are not corrected during too long times..

For example: many people always do the same things on their computers like managing cell phones and files, using windows tools which are familiar to them...and then in linux they cannot use it anymore, but there is no really practical alternative sometimes. so the people go back to windows...

and yes they take the cake with their windows philosophies ...My real windows aversion started with using win7 because of explorer and permission reasons...

[Xian Renegade]

The whole "Linux is incompatible" is not a valid argument at all. I found, on a previous machine, that Windows 7 Ultimate 64 was incompatible with some of my hardware peripherals including my Huawei E220 3G dongle, a digital camera, a Bluetooth USB dongle etc. My current Windows 8 64 stopped running a whole bunch of software apps after a software update. Linux only once gave me this problem and even this was solved after software updates from the medibuntu repository. The latest Mint 15 64 install never even had a problem since installation.

I have been in IT for 30 years and have retired due to disability that had resulted from ill health. The need to hacking into a kernel sometimes is an annoyance as I simply lack the energy to be doing it. Linux, however, is much more predicatble and it also is much more stable. Never a reboot, everything just works and keeps on working. If I have to choose between the two, Linux it will be. My Windows 8 is alive only for warranty purposes

There is a large computer store down the road, at the most visited venue on the African continent. They therefore see much and the technicians there agree that 64-BIT Windows has endless hardware compatibility issues. Perhaps something to consider when making a choice.

[Pierre]

it even appears on the desktop but the autorun file won't run

that is because the 'autorun' is for a M$ base O/S ..

if you get a icon on the desktop, from the now recognized usb modem,
you will also need to configure the connection on 'network manager' as well.

with all of those done & working, you should now 'see' the broadband connection in the network manager's list of available connections.
- left click on the manager to 'see' them.

[Xian Renegade]

On the comment above about battery life. At the time, I had 32-bit Mint Xfce installed, it also was in 32-bit Cinnamon that the dongle did not work. Now, many weeks later and with Windows 8 in between, I can say that battery life is better in Win 8 because of Windows throttling power delivery to USB ports, as well as Dell's own Windows-based power management. Now, with 64-BIT Mint Mate, the dongle works and I see there is better power management but I have yet to test battery life now. USB devices function better (because they get more power) but the system does not heat up and the cooling fan is not on as often as it was on the two 32-bit editions many weeks ago. Meanwhile, updates have been released, so things have changed.

On Autorun: there is a Linux utility on the E3131 firmware that should install and drive the modem much in the same way as it does in Windows. Well, it did not BUT the new 64-BIT MATE has no hassles picling up the modem and running it.

[Xian Renegade]

did you check the result of the command lsusb (in terminal)? if not, please post.

also get the information of the command dpkg -s modemmanager (especially post the version)

i had a discussion and my own problems with mobile broadband modems. but in the end it all worked.

What you have asked for and, since it seems to be working fine now:
pkg -s modemmanager
Package: modemmanager
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: net
Installed-Size: 1293
Maintainer: Alexander Sack <asac@ubuntu.com>
Architecture: amd64
Version: 0.6.0.0.really-0ubuntu5
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14), libdbus-glib-1-2 (>= 0.88), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.31., libgudev-1.0-0 (>= 146), upstart-job
Recommends: usb-modeswitch
Conffiles:
/etc/dbus-1/system.d/org.freedesktop.ModemManager.conf 6a92263b78fc73d5252171dc0ff9c3ea
/etc/init/modemmanager.conf 46dc92ed2060d5db99d5f0c336aaa6f1
Description: D-Bus service for managing modems
Provides a D-Bus interface to communicate with mobile broadband (GSM, CDMA,
UMTS, ...) cards. Implements a loadable plugin interface to add work-arounds
for non standard devices. Also provides patches to use networkmanager (and
the applet) with modem manager.
.
Git Repository: http://cgit.freedesktop.org/ModemManager/ModemManager/

[windumb]

Interesting statements about those usb, fan and battery testings...even more fascinating of course that modern windows versions have many problems with hardware
so open source seems to become quite powerful...

If your modem works as you expect it now, my question is obsolete but not everyone knows that there is a bug in modemmanager version 0.6...
one of my umts modems for example does not work with that version. it requires version 0.5.2 and by simply installing that version everything works.
since you don't know that it can be very frustrating, especially when you are a total newbie to linux...you put in your modem stick and ...nothing...and you don't really know where to start. there are more little obstacles like that in linux what makes it difficult for people to change their OS.

Besides, does anyone know a good tool for displaying network traffic and managing sms of umts sticks? i tried vodafone mobile connect which seems to be outdated , just like umtsmon, which is not very comfortable too.