Total Freedom! Laptop with Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon Linux, Nokia N70 Modem and AIS (One-2-Call) EDGE Wireless

As I post this, I am on my laptop running Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) and connecting the Internet via AIS EDGE wireless internet with my Nokia N70 mobile phone.

One more critical step closer to completely abandoning Windows forever.

The setup was fast and relatively simple once I found Howto connect to the Internet with a Nokia N70 from Ndlovu on UbuntuForums.

For people that have my exact setup (Ubuntu Gutsy, Nokia N70 (connected via the USB cable packaged with the phone), AIS (One-2-Call) in Thailand) I can simplify the process a bit for you.

All I had to do was create the two config files as per the instructions and save them. Then go to the command line and type “pon mobile” and hit enter. Fast and simple–and it worked the first time.

Be warned–there is no feedback; you enter “pon mobile” and you get no “you are connected to the Internet” message–you just are.

If you want to see what happened during the connection process (and to see if you are really connected) try typing “plog” from the command line. Plog is part of the PPPD package (along with “pon” and “poff”) and it shows you the last few lines of /var/log/ppp.log. If that file doesn’t exist, it shows you the last few lines of your /var/log/syslog file, but excluding the lines not generated by pppd. So you can see the status messages that have been written by PPPD about your connection in ppp.log.

A few more notes:

1. PPP is part of the default install for Ubuntu Gutsy–you probably have it installed unless you customized the install to NOT install it.
2. Your user probably belongs to the dialout group already–no need to add. (But it’s not that hard to do, really.)
3. The text he suggests to cut-and-paste all worked exactly as he has it–no need to tweak the settings

It would be nice to have a graphic interface that stepped you through the process, showed you the phone was connected and had a simple little “Connect to Internet Via Mobile” and “Disconnect” buttons–but that’s just me being spoiled by how easy most things are in Ubuntu most of the time.