K3772 Huawei modem not detecting on Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy Salamander) ?
OK I’ll admit, I can be an Ubuntu buff some times.
Scratch that, almost all the time.
I find it a refreshing getaway from the monotonous Windows look on things. And from my part of the world where computers are synonymous with Windows run machines, you’ll get the point.
Here, Macs are “complicated” and mentioning a distro from the Linux community is bound to fetch a “wha ?”.
Because of this when my new laptop couldn’t run effectively on Ubuntu 12.04 (problem: missing drivers not found with that Ubuntu version since some hardware components were much recent than the distro) that instead of resorting to the very popular Windows 8 OS which came with the laptop.
Disclaimer : This is the procedures to a hack. It is in no way fashioned to solve your problems and attach the specified drivers to your computer. And therefore should not be considered as an all out solution. I suppose you are a die-hard aficionado of Ubuntu (seeing you would rather resort to a hack) and would therefore understand. Hopefully, the coming versions would hold support and the necessary drivers for such current Huawei modems ( Hey ! How about submitting a bug report ! ).
First of all, make sure your Huawei modem is safely tucked into a working USB port.
Then, from your terminal call for a list of the available USB peripherals attached;
<username>@<computer name>:~$lsusb
This generates an output similar to ;
Note the device id for your Huawei modem. It will be needed in the next stage.
( Some user specific data has been blocked out. The device id stated above has been circled in yellow )
Now,
cd into /etc/usb_modeswitch.d
and with the text editor of your choice ( I love VIM ! ), create and edit a file named after your device id. Giving the procedure root access with sudo.
<name>@<computer>:/etc/usb_modeswitch.d$ sudo vi <HUAWEI DEVICE ID>
( If you do not have a specific text editor installed use the one that comes with Ubuntu by default - Gedit. Just use gedit in place of vi or vim )
where <HUAWEI DEVICE ID> is your DefaultVendor:DefaultProduct of the device id.
In the newly opened file, type and save this ;
DefaultVendor= <YOUR DEFAULT VENDOR>
DefaultProduct= <YOUR DEFAULT PRODUCT>
MessageContent = "55534243123456780000000000000011062000000100000000000000000000"
Without the less than greater than signs on your default vendor and product IDs.
Give the file root access so you can change the mode of the USB device ( -I for not requiring SCSI attributes, -W for enabling verbose mode so you can actually see what is going on and -c to allow the operation take arguments in this case the new file you created )
sudo usb_modeswitch -IWc 12d1:1526
Your modem should stop blinking right about now but just for a while.
After it begins to blink again, the cd image should show up on your launcher.
A few seconds later the available network from the Sim in your modem should show. If you already have the mobile broadband settings configured, simply connect.
And enjoy !