Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Android phone as 3G modem on Linux

I was quite sad when the Linux couldn't connect to internet using LG GT540 via USB cable. Since the phone runs Android 2.1 there is no option of WiFi Hotspot,but I found a working solution called Barnacle Wi-Fi Tether . Just open the market app and look for this app. Once you installed it open and press "Start" button. Optionally you can make a password for your WiFi connection in the settings menu. On many phones you need to enable Skip wpa_supplicant in Settings to actually create the ad-hoc network. In that case WEP will most likely not work.

Turn on WiFi on your computer and Linux should notice you about new availabe WiFi connection by default named "barnacle". Connect and start surfing the web.


I like that this app also displays the connection speed and dowload/uploaded data.
On Windows you need to check TCP/IP settings to make sure you are obtaining IP address automatically. It doesn't worked for me first time since I was forgot about static IP settings in WiFi connection since I was using WLAN


At no cost you now have the wireless hotspot probably working even with old Android 1.5 phones too :)


Here are some more detailed steps about WiFi tethering on rooted Android phones:

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