How to use your blackberry as a modem in Debian

[ATENTION: this blog post was updated!]

After aquiring a BlackBerry cellphone, I wanted to use it as a modem for my laptop, running Debian. I still didn't figure how to use it via bluetooth, but here's how to do it via USB:

I recommend you read all this procedure before starting

• Install barry (so you can use the cellphone via USB, this makes it chargeable too


• Install XmBlackBerry


• connect your mobile phone to your computer, via USB


• sudo XmBlackBerry


• clicking in the options menu you'll see in the stderr (console where you
  run this app) a /dev/pts/something , which is your GPRS device


• click "connect" and see if your phone tells you that you're connected to the desktop


• sudo vi /etc/chatscripts/blackberry :
  
  

  
  ABORT BUSY ABORT ‘NO CARRIER’ ABORT VOICE ABORT ‘NO DIALTONE’ ABORT ‘NO DIAL TONE’ ABORT ‘NO ANSWER’ ABORT DELAYED ABORT ERROR
  SAY “Initializing\n”
  ” ATZ
  SAY "ATE\n"
  OK 'AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","wap.voicestream.com"'
  OK 'AT'OK 'ATDT*99***1#'
  SAY "Dialing\n"
  

  
  


• (change "device" here) sudo vi /etc/ppp/peers/blackberry
  
  

  
  debug debug debug
  nodetach
  /dev/pts/device
  115200
  connect "/usr/sbin/chat -f /etc/chatscripts/blackberry"
  nomultilink
  defaultroute
  noipdefault
  ipcp-restart 7
  ipcp-accept-local
  ipcp-accept-remote
  lcp-echo-interval 0
  lcp-echo-failure 999
  modem
  noauth
  nocrtscts
  noipdefault
  novj 
  usepeerdns
  user ""
  password ""
  

  
  


• sudo pppd call blackberry

And you're on!

Yeah, but how to install XmBlackBerry?

Here are the steps to install XmBlackBerry:

* get and install libmotif 2.3.0 debian packages here
* aptitude install xaw3dg-dev xorg-dev x11proto-print-dev autoconf libtool libopensync-dev libxp-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libreadline5-dev
* As root, run
ln -s /usr/include/X11/Xaw3d /usr/include/X11/Xaw
* Install Xlt (tested with 13.0.13): get it here, untar it and, in its directory...
*

./configure --with-motif-libraries=/usr/X11R6/lib --prefix=/usr
make && make install

* Install XmBlackBerry:

cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@xmblackberry.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xmblackberry co XmBlackBerry
cd XmBlackBerry/
cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@libusb.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/libusb co libusb
cd libusb
make && make install
cd ..
./CVSMake
./configure --enable-maintainer-mode --disable-shared --with-motif-libraries=/usr/X11R6/lib
make
sudo make install
sudo ln -s /usr/X11R6/lib/libXm.so.4 /usr/lib/libXm.so.4

And how to install Barry?

You distro should have packages for it (most have). If not...

cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@barry.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/barry login 
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@barry.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/barry co -P barry
cd barrysh 
buildgen.sh
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
sudo make install
sudo cp udev/*b* /etc/udev/rules.d/.

Stuff I've been doing lately

Well... Since I didn't post for a while, here's a quickie:

Friday I met two nice restaurants and two good wines. With the company, it was joyful. Arrived late at home, so Saturday I only took the train to Coimbra after dinner. On the train I almost prepared the presentation about the Music Industry and DRM for next saturday in Moita - Portugal. I have to cut it off a lot since I have only one hour (Q/A included) and almost 60 slides.

One thing that bothers me a lot is that stupid thing so many people started to innocently claim after Steve Jobs saying it, and one example (the latest I read) can be seen here: the claim that (physical) CD's aren't infected with DRM. Unfortunately, that's untrue.

Yesterday I finally tried to use my cellphone as a modem, via bluetooth. I wasn't really into it since everyone claimed it was a pain in the ass. Well... It wasn't. I just did

sudo /etc/init.d/bluetooth start
sudo modemlink

chose, "bluetooth", and activated bluetooth on my cellphone (Motorola E1, for the record). It found the cellphone, and asked if that's what I wanted as my modem. Clicked yes. After that

sudo gprsconnect

It asked what my cellphone operator was, but it is none of those listed. So, I chose "other", clicked "connect"... Et voilá! It couldn't be easier.

One bad thing in the talkers world is that all the talker bases there are aren't being developed anymore. Sometimes some vapourware appears, but the smoke soon dissolves. The exception for that is Mamnuts and PyTalker, unfortunately both maintained by me. Which also means that if I stop working on that... Well, not anymore. A new effort as arised, and I hope it won't be vapourware. Tints purposes a talker standard and a protocol. Around the protocol itself an implementation of it in C will appear, and python bindings for it. Then, a server, a talker (notice the separation, compare with a webserver and a website) and a client. The first client is not going to be a telnet interface, but you can virtually create any kind of client, from an interface to telnet, telnet-ssl, an webite, a XMPP plugin, an interface to Second Life... Well, you name it. The concept is really good, and if it doesn't die, I'm almost surely to be an early adopter.

Finaly... SellABand appears to be down. Anyone knows something about it? Update: Finaly, it replies. 500 Internal Server Error. Update 2: Hmm, seems that it just suffered an update.