About a week ago, I mustered up the courage to replace Ubuntu 9.10 on my laptop with lubuntu 10.04. Overall, the transition was quite smooth. The biggest problem I encountered was not being able to connect to Verizon mobile broadband with my PC5750 card.
A few days before I installed lubuntu, I had read on the Keryx forums that someone had similar trouble in Ubuntu Studio 10.04. They solved it by installing the latest usb-modeswitch and usb-modeswitch-data packages from the Debian repositories. This was, of course, the first thing I tried. But there was no apparent improvement; the Network Manager applet still failed to show the device.
So I went to UbuntuForums with the problem. One kind soul pointed me to a 3G tutorial on backtrack-linux.org. My first attempt to follow the directions was successful. But I was unable to do it again the next day.
In desperation, I decided to learn how to connect to my device “by hand” with GnomePPP and, later, wvdial. That is what you are about to learn how to do.
Gathering Materials
You will, of course, need a Verizon USB or PC card modem. Mine happens to be an Audiovox PC5750.
As for software, you will need either GnomePPP or wvdial. Neither come with lubuntu 10.04, so I had to install them with Keryx. If you only plan to use the command line to connect, you’ll only need wvdial.
Finding Your Modem’s Device Path
Both GnomePPP and wvdial will need the device path of your modem. To find it, remove the modem and plug it back in. Then open a terminal and run dmesg.
$ dmesg
Towards the end of the output, you will see some messages indicating that a device has been detected. The output will include a device path starting with “/dev/”. Mine is “/dev/ttyACM0″.
Connecting With GnomePPP
Now that you have GnomePPP installed and your modem’s device name written down somewhere, you can start connecting.
Hit <alt><F2> or open up a terminal and run ‘gksu gnome-ppp’.
After providing your password, you will see a simple dialog where you will enter your connection information. Enter ‘none’ in the Username and Password fields. (Apparently they are required, but have no effect on the connection.) If you’d rather not have to type “none” in the password field next time you connect, check “Remember password.” Then enter #777 in the number field. I’m not sure why that is the number. It just is. 
Now you’ll need to give GnomePPP some details about your device. First click the Setup button. At the top of the window that appears, there will be a Device field. Enter the device path you found earlier (again, mine was /dev/ttyACM0). Next, click the device Type dropdown and choose USB Modem.
That’s all the advanced configuration you’ll need. Click “Close,” and then click the Connect button. After about ten seconds, you will be given a friendly prompt announcing that you are connected, and a timer will start counting the time you remain connected.
One more thing you should look at is GnomePPP’s connection Details window. On the connection timer dialog, click “Details.” In the Details window you’ll find some very useful information. Most important to me (and I suspect many Verizon customers) is the bandwidth usage. Since Verizon enforces a 5GB per month bandwidth cap, it’s important to keep an eye on that number.
Connecting With wvdial
wvdial is the command-line tool that GnomePPP acts as a wrapper for. Using a command-line tool will allow you to create a connection script so you won’t have to open GnomePPP when you want to connect.
Once you have wvdial installed, you need to create a configuration file to give wvdial the information it needs to connect. Pop open your favorite text editor and enter this information:
Modem = <your device>
Phone = #777
Username = none
Password = none
Replace <your device> with the device path you found earlier. Mine reads “Device = /dev/ttyACM0″.
Save the new configuration file in your home directory as wvdial.conf.
Connecting is as simple as running one command.
$ sudo wvdial --config=$HOME/wvdial.conf
After about ten seconds, it will tell you that it’s connected and list a slew of IP addresses.
If you are, like me, too lazy to run the command to connect every time you start the computer, you can create a script to do it for you. Just open your text editor again and add the following lines.
#!/usr/bin/sh
gksu 'wvdial --config=wvdial.conf'
Then save the file to your desktop as “VerizonConnect”. Edit the file properties with your file manager or run the following command to make it executable.
$ chmod +x $HOME/Desktop/VerizonConnect
Now when you start the computer, all you have to do is double-click the script on the desktop and provide your password. Remember to give it a few seconds to connect before trying to load anything in your browser.
That’s it! You now know how to connect to your Verizon PC5750 (or similar) device in Ubuntu 10.04 with either GnomePPP or wvdial. If you have any questions, corrections, or requests for clarification, please leave a comment!
