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Huawei E600 Data Card (Celcom 3G) in Linux

    Information Insemination    

I’m on my way to my hometown now for this 4 days CNY break, and thanks to this Huawei E600 UMTS data card, I’m able to post this blog entry while having some light meal on the roadside. I’m a registered Celcom 3G unlimited plan, and  with it I can enjoy 3G connection with my laptop wherever possible, with GPRS as fallback if 3G is not available in the area.

Setting up the data card is supposed to be a very easy task in Linux, but before I get to know the right way to actually get it to work, I screw up the data card for few times that I need to send it for warranty to have the firmware flashed after following some online guides. It was not a pleasant journey, and I hope with this post others wouldn’t need to go through the path that I’ve been to.

The first thing to do is to make sure you have PCMCIA support in the kernel.

Bus options (PCI, PCMCIA, EISA, MCA, ISA) —>
    PCCARD (PCMCIA/CardBus) support —>
         PCCard (PCMCIA/CardBus) support
         CardBus yenta-compatible bridge support

and you also need the driver for your data card

Device Drivers —>
    USB support —>
         OHCI HCD support
        USB Serial Converter support —>
             USB Serial Converter support
            [*] USB Generic Serial Driver
             USB driver for GSM and CDMA modems 

and support for PPP connection

Device Drivers —>
    Network device support —>
         PPP (point-to-point protocol) support
         PPP support for async serial ports

That’s all needed in the kernel, and now it’s time to install the required software. As I’m using comgt and kppp, the rest of the post will be specific to these 2 applications, though there are other methods in establishing the connection.

Let’s first install comgt:

wget http://optusnet.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/comgt/comgt.0.32.tgz
tar xvzf comgt.0.32.tgz
cd comgt.0.32
make
sudo make install

kppp is a KDE application to handle ppp connections and your distro might already have it installed in your system. Here’s the configuration file used to establish the connection (copied from the net, but some parts of it are not important as comgt will fetch the pre-set settings from the data card itself, in our case specific to Celcom):

root@herugrim ~ # cat .kde/share/config/kppprc
[Account0]
AccountingEnabled=0
AccountingFile=
Authentication=3
AutoDNS=1
AutoName=0
BeforeConnect=xterm -e /usr/local/bin/comgt -x -d /dev/ttyUSB2
BeforeDisconnect=
CallbackPhone=
CallbackType=0
Command=
DNS=
DefaultRoute=1
DisconnectCommand=
Domain=
ExDNSDisabled=0
Gateway=0.0.0.0
IPAddr=0.0.0.0
Name=Celcom3G
Password=1234
Phonenumber=*99***1#
ScriptArguments=
ScriptCommands=
StorePassword=1
SubnetMask=0.0.0.0
Username=user
VolumeAccountingEnabled=0
pppdArguments=defaultroute,crtscts,modem,noipdefault,usepeerdns,novj,debug

[Account1]
pppdArguments=

[General]
AutomaticRedial=0
DefaultAccount=Celcom3G
DefaultModem=HUAWEI
DisconnectOnXServerExit=1
DockIntoPanel=1
NumberOfAccounts=2
NumberOfModems=3
PPPDebug=0
QuitOnDisconnect=0
RedialOnNoCarrier=0
ShowLogWindow=1

[Graph]
Background=255,255,255
Enabled=true
InBytes=0,0,255
OutBytes=255,0,0
Text=0,0,0

[Modem0]
AnswerResponse=CONNECT
AnswerString=ATA
BusyResponse=BUSY
BusyWait=0
ConnectResponse=CONNECT
DLPResponse=DIGITAL LINE DETECTED
Device=/dev/ttyUSB0
DialString=ATD
Enter=CR
EscapeGuardTime=50
EscapeResponse=OK
EscapeString=+++
FlowControl=Hardware [CRTSCTS]
HangUpResponse=OK
HangupString=+++ATH
InitDelay=50
InitResponse=OK
InitString=AT+CFUN=1
InitString1=AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","gprsinternet","",0,0
Name=HUAWEI
NoCarrierResponse=NO CARRIER
NoDialToneDetection=ATX3
NoDialToneResp=NO DIALTONE
PreInitDelay=50
RingResponse=RING
Speed=460800
Timeout=82
ToneDuration=70
UseLockFile=1
Volume=0
VolumeHigh=M1L3
VolumeMedium=M1L1
VolumeOff=M0L0
WaitForDialTone=1

[WindowPosition]
WindowPositionConWinX=487
WindowPositionConWinY=498
WindowPositionStatWinX=815
WindowPositionStatWinY=485

That's all the preparations needed, and you should be able to connect to Celcom 3G. Here's a screenshot of my connection.

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17 Comments to “Huawei E600 Data Card (Celcom 3G) in Linux”

• 

  emi February 18, 2007 at 3:45 am

  Have a good holiday!! PEACE
• 

  shakir February 18, 2007 at 5:53 am

  Thanks, and enjoy your long holiday too (which will only start in a week’s time..)
• 

  Irwan February 18, 2007 at 9:07 am

  Great article! Menarik juga Data Card nie, tapi harga mahal sangat.
• 

  shakir February 18, 2007 at 12:16 pm

  In my case tak mahal jugak since I bought it during the HP-Celcom promotion (not sure if the promo is still on) where I pay RM5K and get a Core 2 Duo laptop + this Huawei E600 data card + 2 years subscription to Celcom 3G unlimited plan. I personally prefer this data card rather than connecting through handset + bluetooth since I always leave the connection open (for torrenting, downloading, instant messaging etc), and to make things better, I can get full 3G connection here at my hometown with Celcom..
• 

  nzuhdi February 21, 2007 at 4:01 am

  nice tutorial bro, i wrote on the same topic but using wvdial. btw, is there any indicator when we’re on 3G or GPRS?

  http://nzuhdi.uberphreak.net/index.php/archives/37
  http://nzuhdi.uberphreak.net/index.php/archives/38
• 

  shakir February 21, 2007 at 4:44 am

  Nice tutorial from you too. Here I skipped some unnecessary details (cat, tail, modprobe etc2) though things would just work without it (in my case la). Some hiccups however when using the modules as in my case I had this unclean module loading/unloading and so I compiled all that ’s needed into the kernel itself, instead as module. I’m also having problem with my other serial driver (pl2302) when used togather with this data card, but I’m not gonna discuss it further here since not many of us using them both here But then, they work great for me now.

  And no, so far I haven’t found any 3G/GPRS indicator for the connection (except for the max connection speed in the kppp statistics window).
• 

  tuksedara February 22, 2007 at 9:32 am

  wei. brp speed dio.. hehe.. tanya jah la.. nak pakai lam utan ni tok leh..
• 

  shakir February 22, 2007 at 10:04 am

  I got it as advertised, 384Kbps (translated to 48KBps) for 3G (UMTS). Hoping to get 3.5G (HSDPA), as the advertised speed is 1.8Mbps..
• 

  Rahmat June 1, 2007 at 3:36 pm

  Mas tolongin donk …..
  Saya sangat berminat dengan Linux fedora core 4.
  Tapi saya ga punya software nya.
  Punya ga mas???
  Kirimin donk kesaya.
  Ato ke e_mail saya ya.
  rahmat.hdyt@gmail.com
• 

  dolphin July 2, 2007 at 7:32 am

  semua jenis pcmcia card boleh ke guna step by step ni bang ?
• 

  dolphin July 2, 2007 at 9:59 am

  dah try, tapi tak detect
  guna pcmcia card cingular
• 

  hoho September 28, 2007 at 5:19 am

  I’m thinking of getting E870 Huawei

  http://www-cnc.huawei.com/mobileweb/en/products/view.do?id=780

  for celcom. I’m in Taiwan now. Will it work? I only have expresscard slot in my laptop.

  Any comment is much appreciated.
• 

  jafny January 25, 2008 at 11:27 am

  knape ade error ble make & make install..?
  huhu…
  masih xdapat buat lagi nie… =)
• 

  arip March 15, 2008 at 10:55 pm

  PCMCIA slot dgn express card slot benda sama x??????
• 

  rajah March 25, 2008 at 12:33 am

  i would like to know where i can download the driver for xp coz its not on the site and i lost my cd
• 

  leez July 15, 2008 at 12:32 pm

  ade driver die tak?
• 

  fakarudden September 28, 2008 at 6:09 pm

  minta tlg. ada driver huawei E600 data card driver tak?