Re: Alcatel X200 troubleshooting

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Sat, 2011-06-04 at 18:23 +0200, Javier Almasoft wrote:
> OK, my local sample of the device is working flawlessly with my dirty
> hack, so I suppose I can wait. Thanks anyway for the interest and
> effort you are spending in this.

I lied and implemented support for it Sunday in ModemManager 0.4.997
(0.5-beta3) which I then tagged and uploaded.  I also just mailed a
patch to linux-usb@vger to fix the 10 second hardlock titled "option:
add Alcatel X200 to sendsetup blacklist".

> In regard to the Windows drivers supplied from the manufacturers, it's
> understandable they don't bother. They expect 'always' for the driver
> to be reinstalled always from the supplied one, and not to be
> supported by the OS natively. So, why care? The device will be
> obsolete in months from their point of view (that seems to be the
> bussiness in cellphone companies, to keep you rebuying again and
> again).

Yeah, that's the problem.  They dont' really care after the device is
out the door.

Dan

> 
> 2011/6/3 Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>
>         
>         
>         I spent a bunch of time with my X200 this morning, and the
>         outlook is
>         not good.  On the plus side, we can get access technology for
>         this
>         device via AT commands, which I assume the X220 also supports.
>         
>         Now the bad news.  TCT in their infinite wisdom gave the X060,
>         X070, and
>         X200 the SAME FREAKING USB IDs, despite the X200 having a
>         completely
>         different command set than the X060/070.  The X060s is driven
>         by
>         Longcheer, while the X200 needs the X22X plugin.
>         
>         At least when Huawei does this (like 20 of their modems are
>         12d1:1001)
>         the modems have the same AT command set.  I really want to
>         yell at TCT
>         now.
>         
>         So supporting the X200 will take a bit more time, because now
>         we have to
>         check the ATI/GMR response (since the X060 and X200 both
>         report the same
>         thing for GMI and GMM, whee!) and look at the firmware
>         revision response
>         to figure out whether Longcheer should drive the device or
>         not.  That's
>         not hard, but it won't be tomorrow that the X200 is properly
>         supported :(
>         
>         I honestly don't know who does firmware development for
>         outfits like
>         Huawei, TCT, and others, but I'd like to yell at them for a
>         while.  Of
>         course on Windows you only ever install software/drivers for
>         one 3G card
>         at a time, so you never run into this.  Or at least that's
>         what I assume
>         the manufacturer thinks you should do.
>         
>         Dan
>         
>         
>         
> 
> -- 
> Un saludo,
> Javier Martínez
> ALMASOFT, S.L.
>