/dev/chat - 2015-12-15

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7:11 AM

any modem connection expert here?

6

Q: 'ip-config-unavailable' error when USB modem tries to connect

I have got a ZTE MF-193E modem which worked fine before. When I bought this modem more than a year ago, it worked readily out of the box. Now, as Ubuntu is progressing in version, things are becoming more and more difficult for me. This modem even worked a couple of months back with Ubuntu 15.04...

networking network-manager usb-modem modem mobile-broadband

Bounty worth of 200 points..

@terdon Hi

4 hours later…

10:46 AM

@heemayl Why not use a different modem? Is this with a broadband connection?

8 hours later…

6:30 PM

@FaheemMitha model number says that's a cell modem

Do people still use the dialup type?

@derobert What's a cell modem? And hi - long time no see.

@FaheemMitha data over cellular (mobile phone) network

@derobert Oh. So some form of broadband, then.

@derobert Maybe in darkest Africa. Or darkest India.

Can't the poster using something supported?

@FaheemMitha I doubt it. Do they have reliable landline phones there?

@derobert Dunno. Depends where you are talking about, I suppose.

6:35 PM

I hear a lot of places built the much cheaper cellphone infrastructure, instead of POTS. POTS is a lot of infrastructure, far more than putting up a cell tower.

1 tower for hundreds (thousands?) of people vs. individual copper wires to each

@derobert POTS? Yes, I imagine much of India runs on cell phones.

@FaheemMitha POTS = plain old telephone service

@derobert Oh. Ok.

So say DSL is better than POTS?

DSL runs on top of it. Well, it often requires changes to the lines... so even more infrastructure.

7:00 PM

@derobert I see.

So, how have you been?

Busy...

@FaheemMitha the problem is it was working with Ubuntu 15.04, the problem started with 15.10..

@FaheemMitha also this is a long lasting problem as OP has already mentioned

added a bounty to get to the depth of it,,

@heemayl Well, fair enough. But why not just switch to another piece of hardware instead of writing a master's thesis about it?

I mean, life is too short...

@FaheemMitha haha ..well said

@heemayl I lost track - it wasn't you with the modem then?

@derobert Work or play?

7:05 PM

@FaheemMitha but do you have any idea of this one or similar?

@FaheemMitha nope..not me

@FaheemMitha Work mostly, but also some personal/community obligations.

@heemayl Not the slightest, no. But I've used Linux long enough to know that you should stick to hardware that is well supported. @derobert do you agree?

@derobert ok. Things hotting up at work, or some seasonal stuff?

@FaheemMitha I've used it long enough to know that it works much better when you upgrade from Ubuntu to Debian. Then things stop randomly breaking as much :-P

@FaheemMitha yeah..

Well-supported is definitely nice. Not sure what's well-supported w/r/t cell modems, though, never used one.

7:07 PM

this one is a toughy

@heemayl there were periods in my life when I spent significant amounts of time messing with hardware drivers and suchlike when I could have been doing something instead. Best avoided if possible.

@derobert Well, if there isn't a well supported one, that's definitely a tough call.

And of course, sometimes you have to deal with it... Because it was cheaper, or the only option, or some silly person did the purchasing.

4.4rc4 finally fixed the silly person doing the purchasing! :-/

@derobert In that case, beating that silly person over the head is clearly the only reasonable course of action.

@FaheemMitha i am just curious that this might be related to the 4.1 kernel that comes with 15.10

@FaheemMitha My big foam cluebat is, unfortunately, not long enough to reach two states away.

7:09 PM

And as for cost, calculate how much your time is worth.

@FaheemMitha Indeed.

Seriously folks, figure out whether Linux supports it before you buy it.

Hah, that's often pretty hard.

I should put this on a sticker and sell it. Or maybe t-shirts.

@derobert It's possible much of the time.

Oh, also, if you want an easy cell connection... consider just getting a cell hotspot.

7:10 PM

I've done it for years.

@derobert Sounds like it should be a comment on that question.

It just adds noise to trying to solve that question... and @heemayl will presumably see it here.

@derobert Um, he's not the one with the problem. He said so.

And I lost track of that question, anyway.

It's not a perfect substitute (e.g., you probably can't send SMS, might be a tad bit slower, it's another device with another battery, ...)

@derobert i started the bounty but it is not something i am facing..

Ah, some guy called Masroor with more time than money wrote an essay about it.

@heemayl Just curious - why the bounty?

Hmm, he has a surprisingly high score on TeX SX. I wonder who he is.

> Still amazed by the beauty of Stack Exchange. Loving it more everyday.

Awww, that's sweet.

7:15 PM

@FaheemMitha need to get to the root of it..this modem is quite popular in my country..Bangladesh..i have not used it..but very often i heard people complaining about it on linux

oh Mr. Masroor is actually a professor..

btw

@heemayl Ah. Someone you know personally, then?

He taught in BUET (Bangladesh Uni of Eng and Tech)

Dhaka. Hmm.

@FaheemMitha yeah..kind of

@heemayl Taught? Retired then?

@heemayl Ok.

Say, do they call people "Sir" in Bangladesh too?

7:17 PM

@FaheemMitha sorry for my stupid grammar..

He is not retired

I quickly scanned through that message... ok, more like read a random paragraph. doesn't Update 10 say its some permission issue?

:)

@derobert Go get 'em Anthony.

@FaheemMitha Yeah..seems you have visited Dhaka? right?

@heemayl In case you don't know, Anthony is one of our experts.

@heemayl Who, me? No. I just live in a neighboring place, relatively speaking.

7:18 PM

Nowhere near enough time to try to understand what's going on with a piece of hardware I can't touch, of a class of hardware I've never used...

On a Linux distro I don't normally use.

@derobert Well, not having the hardware is a bit of a handicap, granted.

@FaheemMitha you meant unix.stackexchange.com/users/33055/anthon

It'd take an hour just to read through and try to understand everything they've done so far.

@heemayl Huh? No, I mean derobert.

@derobert At least.

@derobert only an hour? good luck with that :)

@FaheemMitha sorry..oops

7:21 PM

@heemayl What does your friend teach?

It's only 14 pages... But yeah, at least an hour.

@FaheemMitha He is not my friend really..He is my teacher (well, kind of, i mean not direct)

@heemayl Ok. I was speaking loosely.

@FaheemMitha but you know the culture here :D

@heemayl If it is anything like India, probably.

7:23 PM

@FaheemMitha He teaches at CSE, BUET buet.ac.bd

@derobert please please ..start reading

@derobert we need you help :)

@derobert Bangladesh needs you help :)

:D

I wish I had the time, but I really don't. Especially today. I've got a meeting to prepare for tonight, and no #@!# time to do it already :-(

@heemayl Without the hardware, even Anthony can't be expected to figure it out.

@heemayl Way to go with the emotional blackmail... :-)

@FaheemMitha well..i will take my chances :D

I haven't scanned through it enough to be sure, but it sounded like it worked as root (though I don't know what that USB1/USB3 comment meant—didn't read enough to find out)...

I can only suggest that if something works as root, but not as the normal user, 99.9% of the time, it's a permissions issue

@derobert If you are free tomorrow, may be you can have a go..

@derobert makes sense

7:26 PM

@derobert That's true. Though I haven't read the question.

It looks like they're currently fighting udev. So anyone who knows udev rules might be able to help...

(I say looks as in I scrolled through and see a lot of udev rules floating around)

@derobert can it be a fresh start from your part as we are not sure what they were upto..

And I fear that they haven't been using e.g., etckeeker and thus may not even know what they've done... :-(

@derobert Don't worry about if you are busy. Maybe you can come back to it later.

@heemayl it might help if you can pull RalphRönnquist in to chat, maybe he has a few quick things that he's not sure about/are confusing him/make him wonder "wtf is happening there"/etc.

(Ralph Rönnquist being the guy writing the multi-page many-attempts answer)

7:33 PM

@derobert yeah.. i agree with @FaheemMitha . if you are busy you can start it later..

i think it just needs fresh and expert look

@derobert ok..i will try

Although I'm not going to be around chat much more today. But of course I'm not the only fresh pair of eyes here.

@derobert thanks anyway..

I should be around tomorrow.

@derobert here is the room they have used chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/32575/…

might be better to go there and ask all of them at once

@derobert Well, both Ralph and Masroor.

7:41 PM

I'll leave that chat tab open, and hope to find some time tomorrow

Don't those temporary chat rooms get deleted?

@derobert Thanks man..

@FaheemMitha there is a time limit

@FaheemMitha do you know "faheem" is very common name here?

:)

@heemayl Yes, I would have expected that to be the case. And in Pakistan too.

@FaheemMitha just curious..where are you from..i guess middle east?

@FaheemMitha and dont answer if you want to keep it as secret

:)

@heemayl I'm Indian.

My location is no secret.

7:49 PM

@FaheemMitha makes sense..which part?

of India i mean

@heemayl Bombay.

You're in Dhaka?

Yeah

You mean "Mumbai" :D

@heemayl Well, that's what they are calling it now.

@FaheemMitha yeah..seems you are not too happy about it..huh?

@heemayl I didn't like that name change, no.

I also don't like the people who changed it.

7:52 PM

@FaheemMitha what was the reason? who changed it? i know very little about your culture..

@heemayl Some people called the Shiv Sena changed it. They aren't nice people. I imagine there are more details available on the net.

@FaheemMitha when i was a child i mean about 15-20 years back we know Bombay because of Bollywood of course but suddenlt heard that it is Bombay no more

I don't know much about Bangladesh, either.

@heemayl Yes, that change was made in the late 90s, I think.

@FaheemMitha ohhh....i heard about them..the extremists

@heemayl Yes. I don't know much about them, though.

7:55 PM

@FaheemMitha So apparently Bombay has something to do with religion i guess as they are involved

duh

@heemayl Bombay has something to do with religion? That's news to me.

@FaheemMitha no no..it was just a wild guess

@heemayl Ok

@FaheemMitha as i heard the name of shivseena, this pops up

So how are things in Dhaka? I don't run into a lot of Bangladeshis on the net.

7:57 PM

@FaheemMitha visit BD sometime..you will enjoy

@heemayl Ok...

@FaheemMitha well..i am sleepy..isnt is 1:30 there?

@heemayl Indeed it is.

@FaheemMitha so night owl..huh? me too..

@heemayl Sometimes. It depends.

8:01 PM

@FaheemMitha it was very nice talking to you..will have a chat sometime soon

:)

@heemayl Likewise. Have an nice evening/night. Good luck with the modem issue.

@FaheemMitha Lets see ..btw as i am not quite familiar with the experts on this field, if know someone please give him a ping..

@heemayl I'm not sure we should be bothering people. I just mentioned Anthony because he is here.

And I don't actually know any specific person who would be a particularly good candidate for figuring this out.

@FaheemMitha no no..not bothering..if you think if they might be interested..thats it..

@FaheemMitha

@FaheemMitha yeah..this one is a bit arcane too

@heemayl Hmm. Well, most people aren't particularly thrilled at the idea of debugging hardware. :-) I know I'm not. There might be people on the site who like the challenge, but I don't know who they would be.

8:06 PM

@FaheemMitha ok..take care..see you :)

@heemayl Thanks. You too.

@FaheemMitha makes perfect sense

@FaheemMitha bye :)

Bye.

2 hours later…

10:19 PM

@terdon can a mod please rename opensource to open-source? #haterunontags

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