View Full Version : Getting mobile broadband on an Asus EEE mini-laptop.
Flock1
25th Jan 2009, 16:36
I have an asus eee, running on Linux.
I went to Curry's yesterday and asked about a dongle thing, which is like a USB, which offers mobile broadband without the need for a phone line. I got it home, plugged it in my EEE, and nothing happened.
The dongle thing is a Huawei e156g, if this is any help.
How do I get it to work?
I've already tried putting the dongle in my regualr computer, which is Windows, and it loaded up fine, so that tells me the problem lies with Linux.
Regards
Flock1
It almost certainly needs drivers. There should have been a disk with it. Check the instructions! Your Windows machine may well have had the drivers already in place.
Without those, it ain't gonna accle. Curry's saleslads on the whole don't know about such matters.
Linux drivers tend to be hard to find for some kit, because the manufacturers can't be bothered to write them. Been there, done that.
green granite
25th Jan 2009, 17:39
Try trawling through this lot
Huawei Technical Forum: Mobile Broadband (http://forum.huawei.com/jive4/forum.jspa?forumID=130&orderStr=9)
Flock1
25th Jan 2009, 18:40
Cheers for that.
The dongle came with no disc.
I'll trawl through that forum when I can face it!
Regards
Flock1
Capot
25th Jan 2009, 22:04
FWIW, I bought one of the early Asus eee machines as ideal for mobile use with a dongle. I changed the memory for a 1Mb one, bought Win XP Pro OEM for about £60, and got a friend to remove Linux and put in the essentail bits of Win XP (beyond me). Not much memory left, apart from the 4Gb card, but a Vodafone dongle works fine, and the Asus has built in mic, speaker and webcam for Skype.
Mind you, I now wish I hadn't rushed in to get the Asus; there are infinitely better machines around, after the other manufacturers realised that the Asus hit the spot for business and not primary school kids. But it works OK and the small screen means good battery life.
I just had a browse of a review site talking about that dongle. The review says it comes with the drivers on a memory stick built into it (or at least, the 3 one does, and I'd be surprised if the others were different). There are drivers for Windows and Mac, but not for Linux.
Try here (http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=473596#p473596)for further information. It seems it can be done.
Screwballs
26th Jan 2009, 20:49
Carphone Warehouse are offering a free ASUS eeepc if you sign up to a £30 contract etc. Is it worth getting it? What other decent options are there for an ultra-portable pc?
Screwballs
heretic
27th Jan 2009, 11:31
I have a asus eeepc 701 with linux and have a hawii 220 3g modem with Vodafone and it works fine. I found the software from the site below.
Betavine - New Linux Home Page (http://www.betavine.net/bvportal/web/linux_drivers)
Drivers are already built in, you just have to add a connection, see here for details. (http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=473596#p473596)
twiggs
29th Jan 2009, 01:08
I have just managed to setup a Three Huawei E160G HSDPA USB Stick on an EeePC 701 running Xandros and also a 1000 running Ubuntu.
Interestingly, the 701 would only detect the dongle in the single left hand side usb port.
I was able to set it up using both the Xandros create connection utility and also the Vodafone Mobile Connect utility referred to in the Betavine link above.
The Vodafone utility is similar to the 3 Mobile Broadband utility available for Windows and as such has data monitoring and sms sending/receiving capability.