Setting up a Nokia 6120 as a modem in GNU/Linux (or how to waste your precious time but having lots of fun)
Recently I decided to switch my mobile phone supplier and move to other one with more competitive data transfer fees. Yesterday I got my new SIM card, and today I decided to try to connect to the internet using my mobile phone, a Nokia 6120c, as a modem.
Quique kindly helped me with the setup as we both got the same provider, and he is more experienced than me on doing this kind of things.
First step, was to install wvdial and configure /etc/wvdial.conf with the right options.I first tried:
# wvdialconf /etc/wvdial.conf
But no success. I finally end up copying verbatim a wvdial.conf file I found on this website. It was initially aimed for a N70, but other user reported the same setup also worked for a 6120c.
Later, I noticed that for using a USB port for serial communication I needed a special device /dev/ttyACM0, as it was demanded on the conf file.
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
This node is created on-demand whenever a mobile phone is plugged into the laptop. However, I couldn’t find it on my filesystem. And that’s when the orgy of digging the internet and trying more and more weird commands started. I think we tried almost anything:
Create the node by hand:
# mknod /dev/ttyACM0 c 166 0
Add some lines to /etc/rc.local to create whenever the system boots.
If [ ! -e /dev/ttyACM0 ]; then
mknod /dev/ttyACM0 c 166 0
fi
Nothing of this worked. After that, we started trying loading different drivers:
# modprobe cdc_acm
# modprobe usbserial
# modprobe cdc_ether
Again, nothing worked. Then, I found an interesting thread on a forum where an user exposed the same symptons. At the end, I coudl find a reply where an user claimed to have solved the problem by changing the order of how modules are loaded. It’s supposed that cdc_acm should be more prioritary than usbserial. So, here I went again trying different combinations. Same result, no luck.
Then I took Quique’s phone, which successfully worked, and explore a bit what it did whenever it was plugged. I noticed that when the 6120 was plugged, the storage partition (SDcard) was automatically mounted, and that didn’t happen on Quique’s phone. We decided to remove the SDcard.
Finally, Quique took the phone and plug it on his laptop. It’s important to mention that when the 6120 is plugged, a menu with three options pops up. The option by default is to mount the SDCard (Data transfer), this is the option if no options is picked and the time expires. We leave it as usual, and then got an error since the Sdcard was no longer on the phone, so Quique went for the other option PC-Suite, and voila!
The bottom line of this is story could be something like it’s always much better going for a KISS approach rather than starting trying the most obscure linux commands that first come to your mind.
By the way, it’s no coincidence that in fact today I learnt that the last S of KISS stands for stupid, and that’s exactly how you feel after having spent two hours setting up a mobile phone for going on the internet, believe me.