Review: Tethering Blackberry 8330 to Ubuntu Netbook
Recently I wrote a review of my Dell Mini 9 Netbook. It hasn’t been long enough to change my opinion, and that is not what this post is about.
Along with my Dell Mini, I have a BlackBerry 8330. Also called the Curve. I have had a few blackberries, which were OK, but I love this one. This post is not about that either.
Recently I decided it would be fun to tether my Curve to my Dell so that I could browse the web while commuting. So I set out to try just that.
First I checked Verizon. Simple, for $15 more a month they would add tethering to my data plan with unlimited (5Gb/month) modem data. All I had to do was install their app, and enable the feature on my account. Except, the app only runs on Windows and MacOS. My netbook runs Ubuntu Linux. Hmmmm.
Confident I’d get to the bottom of it, our ops team at my job enabled the feature on my plan. Now I just had to figure this out. To the community. No one on my team had tried this, so I went to Google. “tether blackberry Ubuntu” was the first thing I tried. I had good luck. Seemed everyone uses a product called Barry. Basically it is like the RIM desktop manager where you can sync your blackberry, move data, and even tether it as a modem. So I started to install Barry.
Like anything Linux, you are now faced with a lot of libraries that depend on each other, and you have your work cut out for you. I tried that for an hour, and got nowhere. Turns out my version of Linux for the netbook is so light, it is missing a lot of communication libraries Barry needs. Everytime I installed one library, it depended on another. This wasn’t for me, so I went back to Google. This time I read more posts, and concentrated on the comments. Finally I found someone who said they gave up on Barry and found and easier alternative. Easier = practical, so I investigated.
This is how I found Berry4All, “Blackberry support for for the the rest of us”. It was way easier to setup. It’s a python script, so you only need to install python and wxpython for the GUI. I highly recommend this if you are trying to accomplish Blackberry tethering. The install instructions are very straight forward, and work as described.
You install the script, then edit the config file that matches your provider. Luckily for me replacedefaultroute seemed to be supported by my netbook. I disabled mass media mode on my blackberry, plugged it in, and connected. You have to enter your password if your blackberry has one, and you can also edit the connection speed in the config file. Other than that there was not much.
Finally there was one very important piece. Apparently Firefox does not recognize the connection, so it goes into “work offline” mode by default. This made me think my modem tether was not working for awhile, but eventually I ran a ping, and saw I was indeed connected. If using Firefox, go to File and uncheck work offline. You should be able to browse form there.
All in all it was a good learning experience, and jogged my modem knowledge from my younger days (circa 1997). Unless you are a Linux guru o rwant all the features of Barry, give Berry4All a try.
I do have a question for anyone out there who has tried this. I am playing with the connection speed setting in the config file and I have yet to really notice a difference. Does anyone know the ideal setting for the BlackBerry 8330 over Verizon’s CDMA (EVDO) network? Right now i have it set to 230400, which is double the default.
Finally, does anyone know if its possible to disable the BlackBerry battery charging via USB when connected as a modem? The tethering drains my laptop battery pretty quickly and I would love to stop it when my netbook is not plugged into a power source.
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16 Responses to “Review: Tethering Blackberry 8330 to Ubuntu Netbook”
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This is a great post, it’s so funny I have been looking at a Dell mini, and I also have a blackberry I was hoping that I could make them work well together. Thank you for this information.
I came to your blog asking the same question about disabling the USB connection powering the blackberry. I have an older Dell (only three years old) laptop and the battery life lasts about half as long with the blackberry plugged in. I’ll check other sources and get back with you if I find anything out.
thanks for the tips, i’ve got the same phone on verizon and haven’t had luck with any other tutorials. i’m on my way to try this out now!
Thanks for the tips. Tethering seems to be a constant problem for many people.
I could find any response for our question about usb… im tired, may be no one else cares this much like us…
I have a blackberry curve 8900 and love it. blackberry is a solid phone.
I’ve got a linux netbook and have been having a terrible time getting berry4all installed. i am totally new to linux and have no idea how to install something I’ve downloaded. Is there an easy step by step for linux beginners??
I have a Blackberry 8330 with unlimited data 3G and a HP Mini 110. I bought a Half Moon bluetooth donge from Ebay (China) for $3. Sticks out the side of my computer about a quarter inch. No software to instalI with the HP, plugged it in, set up a New Network Connection, allowed my phone to find it and now I have web access anywhere my phone goes. Speed is only 115kbs max. I get an average 85% of that at anytime. (I live in Seattle,good conections.) Blackberry! Don’t leave home without it!
Correction to what I said before. Sprint speed in Seattle is max 1005kbps download, I get average 85% of that depending on the neighborhood.
@eye – Thanks for the tip, sounds promising. i have mine hard wired, and if I go to bluetooh, that would stop the issue of my blackberry draining the laptop while tethering (due to the charging). However, the bluetooth will probably now drain both just as much. But one less wire to carry on my commute is always welcome.
@cec – I used these instructions for installing berry4all.
http://www.berry4all.com/install
this linux blog also has a step by step walk through.
http://linux.digitalsp.com/2009/07/use-your-blackberry-phone-as-modem.html
good luck!
There definitely should be an option to disable USB battery charging somewhere in the “engineer’s menu”, check it out.
Thanks for the informative post. I was wondering how I could make them work together. I look forward to more from you in the future.
Thanks for the post, i was trying to set up my blackberry on my kubuntu system and you recommendations is correct, works perfect, sorry for cant taking back the favor give you some response about you usb question, but if i found something i will let you know. Thank you very much.
by restaurantes madrid
I have been trying to use berry4all with my BB Curve 8830 from sprint.
I continually get the following error:
^@^@^@^@0^@^@^@0^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^X^@^@^@xV4^R
NO CARRIER
Connect script failed
Ideas?
i own both Blackberry and iPhone, i would say that iPhone has great ergonomics~;,