…after I installed Kubuntu 11.04 beta, everything was going smooth, wireless worked out of the box, (unlike 10.10 where I had to install some freedom hating broadcom driver) I had the awesome kde 4.6.2, seating on top what has been tagged the most significant Linux kernel release for desktop users in a long time kernel v2.6.38 (with the magic patch and all). Life was good.

Then it happened!

Trouble started when I wanted to send some files to my phone from laptop via the bluetooth. (You see I happen to be among the unfortunate set of people who have the same button for enabling wireless and bluetooth.) I tried enabling the laptop’s bluetooth when the whole system came to a standstill. I did a forceful shut-down after which my install never saw the light of the day again. Everytime I tried booting the PC, it always got stuck at the boot process. The scary part was even the the Kubuntu 11.04 Livecd stopped Booting at all! Only Kubuntu 10.10 was able to boot (from Livecd).

Searching for Answers

The most frustrating part of my Nasty Natty experience (pun intended) was trying to determine the root cause. How to explain how an OS installs fine, then crashes and not only does it become unable to boot, even attempts to do a clean install also hits a dead then. Here were a list of my suspicions

Corrupt system Memory (I know from experience that the best way to test if a system has bad memory is to load in a Live cd, this was ruled out by the fact that I was able to load on Kubuntu 10.10 on Live cd without issues)

Then I thought maybe a bad system Bios (I really wanted to pursue this option and upgrade the system BIOS via windows. Thankfully windows won’t install, complained about some partition issues)

I also considered a badly burnt media (but checked its integrity and it was said to be ok)

Kde 4.6 bug? (Xubuntu 11.04 had the same problem) kernel bug? hmmm

Light Bulb Moment…

Came while talking to a friend about the problem on irc and he suggested it was most like kernel problem probably some bad module. This got me thinking, I remembered the last thing I was doing (or wanted to do) when all this started was enabling bluetooth (shares the same button as the wireless)

I then decided to go into the system BIOS and disable the wireless / bluetooth radio. Fired the LiveCD of Xubuntu 11.04 and Voilà Xubuntu booted successfully, no hangs or freeze. But also no wireless.

Work Around

After I was able to get Xubuntu to successfully boot. I proceeded to install it. (for testing purpose I enabled the wireless radio from Bios and had the issue the freshly install Xubuntu 11.04 freeze at login screen (again) disabled it and everything worked fine (But no wireless)

Here is what I now did to fix the issue on my laptop. I did not have this issue on 10.10 mostly because that version of Kubuntu did not ship with the opensource broadcom drivers. I had to use the binary only driver from broadcom, hence the idea was to revert back to that setup.

first I installed the broadcom-sta-common (It provide a binary only closed source driver for broadcom)

sudo apt-get install broadcom-sta-common


Once installed, I edited the following file /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf

NB its always a good thing to backup before making any change to config file.
backup with this command

cp /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf-orig

In case things gets jammed up and you want to revert, you can easily do so with

cp /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf-orig /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf

kdesudo kate /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf


NB gnome user should use gtksudo gedit in place of kdesudo kate (and if you are like me, you can use ever reliable vim )

Anyway I blacklisted the brcm80211 open source broadcom driver by adding this line to, /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf blacklist brcm80211 Before the last line. When done, everything looked like this

# wl module from Broadcom conflicts with ssb
# We must blacklist the following modules:
blacklist b44
blacklist b43legacy
blacklist b43
blacklist ssb
blacklist brcm80211
install wl /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install wl $CMDLINE_OPTS

I saved the file and then edited this file /etc/modules (again backup before editing)

cp /etc/modules /etc/modules-orig

By adding the module for the closed source (freedom hating but stable) broadcom driver so it is loaded at every system boot

I added lw to the end of /etc/modules so the file looks like this

# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.
#
# This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded
# at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored.

lp
lw

Saved the file, exited, and rebooted this time with the wireless on to test if the issue as been fixed. The laptop rebooted fine, no issue, but still no wireless. Then I started the Kubuntu additional driver tool or kdesudo jockey-kde (from commandline on Kubuntu) or gtksudo jockey (from commandline on Ubuntu) which searched and informed me I needed to activate some proprietary drivers to make the wireless card work properly. I enabled them, It did its magic and voilà the wireless card came on. I was able to enable and disable it without the system kernel panicing.

I rebooted my laptop and there was no problem at all, everything worked just like it did on 10.10.
I explained the same step to some dude on irc having similar problem and my solution worked for him so I decided to share in case anyone is having such problems.

I hope someone finds this useful.

sudo apt-get install dnsmasq-base

once installed the rest is easy

just left-click on the Network Manager Applet-> Create new wireless connection,

left-click

give your connection a name (you can even add encyption if you want.) click on “Create”

name

you should now see a message that says “Now you are connected to xxxx wireless Network”. well that is all. Now when you search for a wifi connection on your wifi device you would see the one  you just created connect to it and happy surfing.

Note: This will only work if the sharing system is not using wireless as its means of connection. if it is then the older guide would work for you.

hope this helps somebody.

Note: for some reasons i couldnt connect to the ad hoc wireless created using this guide wicd on my laptop (which uses mint-xfce) but i could connect and browse with my nokia N810 without a problem. so it must be an issue with wicd which i would find out more on.

Edit I can conforim that this guide works with Hardy Heron. But the network manager 0.7 has to be installed. to do this is quite easy.

first we add this repository to your sources.list with this command

echo deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/network-manager/ubuntu hardy main | sudo tee -a '/etc/apt/sources.list'

then we update and upgrade

sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude full-upgrade ; sudo update-icon-caches

once this is done reboot and you should have a new shinny network manager 0.7 plus all the goodies that comes with it.

Please while it might be possible on some other laptops. my laptop came with the PRO/Wireless 3945ABG and its impossible to share my internet over wireless because the current driver for my device doesnt support master mode which is what is needed for this to be possible. But with this guide it would be possible to share intenet via Lan. so if you get your intenet connection over wlan or a 3g modem or anything modem. it would be possible to share that same internet over Lan. Note if you got your wifi to work through ndiswrapper then we are also in the same shoes and sharing via wifi wont work. Infact this post is not about sharing your internet via wifi period.

Ok enough talk. To get started we would need tool packages. Firestarter and dhcp both can be installed with this command

sudo apt-get install firestarter dhcp3-server

Next we need to configure the internal Network Card that other computers get their internet from. In my case since the shaing computer gets internet from Wifi my internal network card (i.e the card other computers would be getting their internet from) would be eth0. we need to configure the card and assign a static IP address in a range that you will use for your internal network card. so rightclick on the Network manager applet and select edit

click the wired tab and select Auto eth0 (or the card of the particular card you want to coonfigure as the sharing interface) and click edit.

now select IPv4 Settings and choose Manual. now Add

and set it up to your preference. for example i set like this IP address to 192.168.0.1, and the subnet mask to 255.255.255.0. Leave the gateway empty.

Now we need to fix a problem where firestarter cannot locate the DHCP daemon script

so we open a terminal and run this command

sudo ln -sf /etc/init.d/dhcp3-server /etc/init.d/dhcpd

Next we configure the interface that DCHP will be listening to.

To do this we need to edit this file /etc/default/dhcp3-server

gksu gedit /etc/default/dhcp3-server

only variable in there by default is “INTERFACES”, which will have a null value. Set it to your internal network interface. For example:

# Defaults for dhcp initscript
# sourced by /etc/init.d/dhcp
# installed at /etc/default/dhcp3-server by the maintainer scripts

#
# This is a POSIX shell fragment
#

# On what interfaces should the DHCP server (dhcpd) serve DHCP requests?
# Separate multiple interfaces with spaces, e.g. “eth0 eth1″.
INTERFACES=”eth0″

save and exit

Now we run Firestarter Applications/Internet/Firestarter

A wizard should appear Select your Detected Device (Internet-connected) if your sharing computer gets its Internet via wifi then your external device would mostly be wlan0. if you are connected via a modem then it would be ppp0 device when it asks, and make sure to specify whether or not the address is obtained via DHCP. Click the “Forward” button, check the “Enable Internet connection sharing” box, select your internal network card,”Start firewall now” box, Then click on Preference and and Network settings.

“Enable DHCP for local network”. Drop down the “DHCP server details” and enter the range of IPs you would like for it to dynamically assign. Make sure they are in the same range as the static IP you set for your internal network card. You can leave the DNS field as “” Click “Forward”, check the “Start firewall now” box, and click “Save”.

“Enable DHCP for local network”. Drop down the “DHCP server details” and enter the range of IPs you would like for it to dynamically assign. Make sure they are in the same range as the static IP you set for your internal network card. You can leave the DNS field as “” Click “Forward”, check the “Start firewall now” box, and click “Save”.

At this stage am able to ping the from the other computer but am unable to access the internet. to fix this we need to add “net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1″ to /etc/sysctl.conf

to /etc/sysctl.conf

so
gksu gedit /etc/sysctl.conf

and add this at the bottom

net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1
save and close.

now if all goes well you will be able to share your Internet to another laptop or computer. hope this helps some body

To share your internet using your wireless connection use this guide

These instructions will walk you through the process, step-by-step, of configuring the Novatel Merlin 620 EV-DO CDMA Wireless Data Card and other similar models.
Note: This tutorial assumes that you are using Ubuntu with the GNOME Desktop Environment.
Activation

In most cases, activation of your wireless data card is either done by a representative of your wireless provider, or must be done using the included software on a Microsoft® Windows®-based operating system. Refer to the installation instructions included with your hardware for more information.

Once you have completed the activation of your product, you are ready to begin configuring the wireless card for use in Linux.
Getting Started

( This part only works on Feisty Fawn)

We must start the process of configuring your data card by first gathering some very important information that Ubuntu will need in order to utilize the hardware properly. Be sure that, at this point, you have the card removed from the PCMIA slot on your notebook before beginning.
Open a terminal window and execute the following command:

cat /proc/bus/usb/devices > devices

Now insert your data card into the PCMIA slot and wait for a few seconds before continuing.

In the terminal window again, type the following and press ENTER:

diff /proc/bus/usb/devices devices | grep Vendor

You should see some output that looks like the following:

diff /proc/bus/usb/devices devices | grep Vendor

< P: Vendor=0000 ProdID=0000 Rev= 2.06

< P: Vendor=0000 ProdID=0000 Rev= 2.06

< P: Vendor=1410 ProdID=1110 Rev= 0.00

Inspecting the output, you will find two key pieces of information necessary for configuration of your data card: the Vendor and the ProdID.
Now, in the terminal, execute the following command:

sudo modprobe usbserial vendor=0x1410 product=0x1110 ( Gutsy upwards can start here )

Be sure to use your own Vendor and ProdID variables here.
Your wireless card should now be properly configured, and we can now move on to the next step of the process.

Configuration Script

Next, we need to edit the configuration script in order to get the data card communicating with the outside world.
Issue the following command and press ENTER:

gksu gedit /etc/wvdial.conf

Copy and paste the following code into the file, replacing the existing contents:

[Dialer Defaults]

Dial Command = ATDP


In the above script, you will need to change a few pieces of information. First, you will need to replace “XXXXXXXXXX@provider.com” with the 10-digit phone number and provider domain assigned to your data card. (For example: 001412064@vzw3g.com). Lastly, change the password to the one supplied to you by your provider. This password is normally referred to as an MTL or PIN number and is typically 6 digits long, but may vary depending on your provider. If you are unsure of what values to enter here, contact your service provider
Testing the Connection

The card has been configured, our script should be in order, and we should now be ready to test our connection to ensure that it is working properly.
In the terminal window, use the following command:

sudo wvdial

If the connection works, you will receive output in the terminal window similar to the following:

Automatically Connecting at Startup

The final step is to get the connection to automatically initialize when the system starts up so that it will be available for use nearly instantaneously.

Navigate to System > Preferences > Sessions in GNOME. Next, click on the tab labeled, “Startup Programs” and then click the “Add” button. In the Startup Command field, enter “wvdial” and then click “OK”.
You should now be fully ready to utilize your data card in Linux without complication.

If you have Problem connecting through this method please give me a call

This has been confirmed to work well with Reltel wireless ***Novatel Merlin 620 EV-DO CDMA Wireless Data Card ***

Bigbrovar-08022982697 Nigeria Residence only

Alternatively

Next, open your terminal and type the following commands:

sudo tail -f /var/log/messages

This will enable you see what is happening on your system.
Next insert the EVDO card into your laptop. You will see
that the system display information about your card. Note,
You will see two mount points. Don’t worry if you do not
know the mount point to use.

Next open another terminal and type:

sudo wvdialconf

this will automatically probe your card and give
the mount point and speed. Next type

sudo wvdial

Linux will try to connect using the default setting written by the last command.
It show you invalid user name, password and phone number. No problem.
Next, type

sudo pppconfig

this will open a window that you will fill. Don’t forget to delete
pre-filled information and replace them with your own information.
eg replace provider name with your own provider name.

Remember to copy the last line of the wvdialconf command
output. Use the best recommended speed. Ok. Other info are

phone number: #777
userName: card number@provider.com
password: card number

Be sure to confirm from your provider. This information is for reltel users.
Your mount point or port should /dev/ttyUSB0
When you are through with this, save and exit.
And finally connect with this command,

pon provider name

watch the log terminal, you should see the you system, pry and secondary IP addresses displayed.
Note: do not forget to select DHCP from the pppconfig window.

open your web browser and hurry, you are up with your new connection.

To disconnect

poff provider name

Enjoy it. Linux is the freedom of choice.
Need help feel free to post

The terminal would be treated first.

Launch a terminal from Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal

A terminal comes up connet your phone through a usb serial cable and then type sudo wvdialconf and press enter. This command searches your computer for any modem attached to it. If it finds it would tell you modem found. If its a phone it would say new device found /dev/ttyACM0

Then now type in this command also sudo gedit /etc/wvdial.conf Now you’ll have to edit it removing the unnecessary semicolons and then when yours look like mine then press save

[Dialer Defaults]

Init1 = ATZ

Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0

Modem Type = USB Modem

Baud = 460800

New PPPD = yes

Modem = /dev/ttyACM0

ISDN = 0

Phone = *99***1#

Password = internet

Username = internet

Then you return to the terminal and type sudo wvdial and press enter and it starts to connect once it does, don’t close that terminal because if you do that you go offline.

Now for the non terminal people, kpp is a very excellent tool, it does the job well.

The first thing would be to install kppp from the synaptics. To do this click Applications then choose Add/Remove programs then search for Kppp

For those who use the terminal and are able to get online already but want to change to kpp just connect through the terminal first, then follow the instructions below

After installation just press Alt and F2 together, a run dialog comes out like the one below and type kppp and run.

Now click on configure, and choose manual setup

Then input your connection name, i’ve named mine celtel, then click Add to add your dialup no (Vmobile is *99***1#, for starcomms it should be #777)

http://ubuntunigeria.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/enter-your-number.jpg

Then now click OK and OK again you don’t need to worry about IP, DNS etc.

Now click on modem tab and choose new, here’s the tricky part Name your modem since am using Motorola L6 i named my modem L6.

To know what your modem is just open a new terminal and type sudo wvdialconf and it would show the name of your modem.

If you’re using a mobile phone it should be /dev/ttyACM0, then choose that.

Now click on the modem tab and click query modem. This would confirm if that modem you choose exists.

Now mark it and choose okay then follow the previous instructions i gave.

If you have problem connecting to the net after following the above please call Afolabi 08025426934 *Nigeria Residence Only

Note Due to the frequent disconnection that has been experienced on starcoms and multilinks … you can add this string Init3 = AT+CRM=1;$LGPKT=3 to your wvdial config so it looks like this

[Dialer Defaults]
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Init3 = AT+CRM=1;$LGPKT=3
Modem Type = USB Modem
ISDN = 0
New PPPD = yes
Phone = #777
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
Username = 7525553@multilinks.com
Password = 482711
Baud = 460800

after you most have followed the guide above … i.e doing wvdialconf and all … run this command

sudo gedit /etc/wvdial.conf

this would open the wvdial.conf in a text editor ..

just add this string

Init3 = AT+CRM=1;$LGPKT=3

to the 3rd line .. so it would look like this

[Dialer Defaults]
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Init3 = AT+CRM=1;$LGPKT=3
Modem Type = USB Modem
ISDN = 0
New PPPD = yes
Phone = #777
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
Username = 7525553@multilinks.com
Password = 482711
Baud = 460800

once you have done that save and close the text editor