Using the Sprint U727 USB EVDO adapter with the EeePC

Posted February 9, 2008 under eeepc

Here’s the next step to a truly ultra mobile PC. Get the EeePC to support EVDO! At CES Asus announced that they’d add WIMAX support to the EeePC, but for now you have to make things work with a USB EVDO adapter.

I happen to have the Sprint U727 USB adapter (more precisely it’s a Novatel U727 sold through Sprint), but I’m sure something similar can be done with other USB adapters. And I am now mostly running EeeDora (I tried this briefly on the default Xandros install on the eeePC but couldn’t get the usbserial module to detect the card). So these instructions are based on the 20080115 version of EeeDora, all updated to the latest versions, except for the kernel in order not to have to mess with the EeePC specific kernel modules.

As Sprint points out in their instructions, the adapter needs to have been activated on a Windows machine (or in my case, a Mac). Once that is done, it can be used under Linux just fine!

  • All this needs to be run as superuser: open a terminal (Ctlr-Alt-T) and type su - and type in your root password
  • Get the gnome-ppp package: yum install gnome-ppp
  • Plug the adapter into a USB port on your EeePC
  • Run modprobe usbserial vendor=0×1410 product=0×4100
  • Start gnome-ppp
  • Click on Setup
  • On the Modem tab click on Detect
  • It will find the ttyUSB devices and select /dev/ttyUSB0 by default
  • Select Type USB Modem and set the Speed to 460800. Phone Line is Tone and Volume can be set to Off.
  • On the Options tab select Ignore terminal strings (stupid mode)
  • Click Close and return to the gnome-ppp window
  • Pick any Username and Password (like: user and none), type #777 as Phone number
  • Click Connect

After a few seconds you should be connected via the EVDO adapter!

Thanks for visiting!
I hope this was helpful - if not, please leave a comment and let me know why! Were you searching for something else? Did I miss an important aspect?

4 Comments so far

  1. Jesse on February 10th, 2008

    This works under Xandros as well. All you need to do is recompile the usbserial module. A good explanation is at http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=125793

    But thanks for the EeeDora instructions!

  2. Andy on April 8th, 2008

    Thanks for the article. I installed eeedora - like it a bunch more than xandros.

    I followed your guide, but, when I type in the modprobe command, I get: bash: modprobe: command not found

    Any ideas?

    Thanks again.

  3. Andy on April 8th, 2008

    Answering my own post… couple of things I had to do in order for it to work:

    1. Use full path for modprobe
    /sbin/modprobe

    2. Clear the usbserial reference
    /sbin/modprobe -r usbserial

    3. Add it
    /sbin/modprobe usbserial vendor=0×1410 product=0×4100

    After that, it worked like a charm following your post.

    Screen shots and more over on http://eeegeek.wordpress.com

  4. DianeHelen on April 20th, 2008

    eeedora? can that be installed over top of stock Xandros? If so, what does that do to all the existing, working aps already installed? Does to switch to eedora mean a total reformat (for lack of a better word) to square one?

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