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HTC tytn II sharing Wireless via USB with ancient linux Laptop

I own a very old IBM laptop, 64 MB of memory 533Mhz Intel celeron 5Gb HD, running [blippr]ubuntu[/blippr] 9.04 alternate with fluxbox and custom kernel. Unfortunately this laptop doesn’t have any way to connect to internet but the old 56K modem. The pcmci port seems broken (also I don’t think spending 50€ for a pcmcia wireless or eth card is a good idea as the laptop value is around 5€) so the latest chance for me to navigate from this old friend is connecting something to the USB…

Instead of buying some usb key or similars (see reasons above) I decided to try configuring my HTC tytn II (Kaiser) running Windows Mobile (WM6) as USB gateway for the laptop. Here’s what I did after googling a bit.

Config the laptop

I found this interesting thread showing how to install usb connection module. As I could nor install svn neither download the trunk from the laptop I did the checkout from my gentoo desktop

svn co https://synce.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/synce/trunk/usb-rndis-lite

and then copied the trunk to an usb pen and transferred it to the laptop. Inside the laptop I configured, compiled and installed the module.

make
sudo ./clean.sh
sudo make install

Then I added the connection to my interfaces

sudo vim /etc/network/interfaces

with this configuration

iface rndis0 inet dhcp
auto rndis0

Config the Phone to share 3g

If you want to share your 3g connection just open your comm manager and select share connection or similar. In the next screen just choose the operator/type of connection you want to share (3g,hdspa,edge ecc) and the usb as vector. Plug the phone to the usb cable, the cable to the pc and skip to Start the networking

Config the Phone to share wireless

As I don’t own a flat plan for mobile connection I’d rather prefer sharing my home/work wireless trought the phone. To do so I found this great tool for Windows Mobile named ICS commander. Just download the .exe and run it from your mobile (no it’s not a cab installer, just a binary to exec). I configured it this way for my kaiser:

  • Public Interface : TNETW12511 (this means I want to share my WIFI)
  • Private Interface : RNDISFN1 (this means I want to share it via USB)
  • Check ‘Set Private IP’ and set it to 169.254.2.1 (this is kaiser default own ip)
  • Check ‘Auto Connect to Network’ with ISP settings
  • Uncheck ‘Allow suspend Mode’ (this prevent your phone to cut wifi and go in standby )
  • Be sure DHCP server is checked

Now just select ‘Save‘ and then ‘Start ICS‘. Plug the usb cable, and plug it to the laptop.

Proceed with Start the networking.

Start the networking

Back to the laptop.

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

You’re done, you should see your IP and then you can ping the world

ping google.com
  • http://vkontakte.com/ Mike

    Hi, nice posts there :-) thank’s for the interesting information

  • http://vkontakte.com/ Mike

    Hi, nice posts there :-) thank’s for the interesting information