Tethered Blackberry Modem on Ubuntu Karmic

Using your blackberry as a 3G (in my case) modem proved to be Incredibly simple. There are five million different methods to do this and many have you compiling stuff and editing text files. I love those sorts of things, but this is much easier. I Wish that I had tried this sooner.

**Confirmed using Blackberry Tour (9630) on Verizon. **

What we will do is use a program called ‘barry’. http://www.netdirect.ca/software/packages/barry All we need to do is install some packages from the repository below. These commands are from the terminal, so launch it from “Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal” in the Menu.

Edit /etc/apt/sources.list

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

add these lines:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/doctormo/barry-snapshot/ubuntu karmic main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/doctormo/barry-snapshot/ubuntu karmic main

install the repositories key.

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 113659DF

Now update your package list

sudo aptitude update

and install the programs:

sudo aptitude install libbarry0 barry-util barrybackup-gui

Thats it! now to create the connection, the command will vary depending on your provider. The ones they have preconfigured are: ATT Cingular, China Mobile, KPN Nederland, O2 Ireland, Rogers, Sprint, T-Mobile US, Verizon.
the syntax is :
sudo pppd call barry-{provider}

for Verizon:

sudo pppd call barry-verizon

You’ll see a bunch of output, and it’ll tell you that the connection is up. to close it down, press (CTRL+C). Make it pretty by creating an application launcher on your desktop.

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8 Comments

  1. Fat Ninja
    Posted November 6, 2009 at 10:21 pm | Permalink

    Jake, I’ve been tethering with a Pearl for several months now with a PC. I’ve just installed Ubuntu and am so new to Linux it’s pathetic. Is there anywat that you can give a step by step on how to to this? That might be what you are doing above but I am such a noob I can’t even tell. Any help you can give is so appreciated! Thanks!

    • Posted November 10, 2009 at 5:33 pm | Permalink

      Ninja,

      I have updated the post to make it a little more clear for newbies. read through it again. If you are getting stuck somewhere specific, let me know.

      • Fat Ninja
        Posted November 14, 2009 at 9:56 pm | Permalink

        I think I can follow the abouve. However, does my Ubuntu Computer need to be connected to the internet in order to complete the above tasks? If so, is there a way to download the needed files and direct the above tasks to the downloaded files? I believe that I have already downloaded the needed files.

  2. Niko
    Posted February 1, 2010 at 2:20 pm | Permalink

    I ran through all of this, looked like it worked, but when I tried the PPPD command (I have ATT), I used sudo pppd call barry-ATT Cingular I got a response that looked like :
    can’t open options file /etc/ppp/peers/barry-ATT: No such file or directory

    I’m wondering if I made an error somewhere, and if you might know what went wrong.
    I’m also wondering if this is solely a terminal run program or something with a GUI.

    • Posted February 9, 2010 at 3:48 pm | Permalink

      Niko, alex,

      I’d recommend that both of you look into the files in “/etc/ppp/peers/”. When I call

      sudo pppd call barry-verizon

      , The computer is actually looking for a file by that name in the directory.

      This command will list the pre-installed configurations:
      ls /etc/ppp/peers/barry*

  3. alex
    Posted February 6, 2010 at 1:27 am | Permalink

    HI, i need help to tether blackberry bold 9700 to Ubuntu karmic, the provider is Wind mobile, I really thanks any help,
    Alex

    • Posted February 9, 2010 at 3:50 pm | Permalink

      Alex,
      I’ve never heard of Wind mobile. You should do a little research into what kind of network they have. Then take that information to edit a pre-made configuration from a network that barry includes by default in /etc/ppp/peers/.

  4. M @
    Posted February 14, 2010 at 5:14 pm | Permalink

    First of all, thank you for putting this together. There were a few other descriptions of this out there–but this one was very well done.

    I think that I have everything installed correctly, but I run into trouble when I run:
    sudo pppd call barry-tmobileus
    I get a lot of output, but the part that I think is relevant is:
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

    Sent 1139 bytes, received 500 bytes.
    sent IPCP TermReq id=0×6b “Could not determine local IP address”
    rcvd IPCP TermAck id=0×6b
    sent LCP TermReq id=0×2 “No network protocols running”
    rcvd LCP TermAck id=0×2
    Connection terminated.
    /////////////////////////////////////////

    Sent 1139 bytes, received 500 bytes.
    sent IPCP TermReq id=0×6b “Could not determine local IP address”
    rcvd IPCP TermAck id=0×6b
    sent LCP TermReq id=0×2 “No network protocols running”
    rcvd LCP TermAck id=0×2
    Connection terminated.
    /////////////////////////////////////////

    I found an instance of this error over at:
    http://blog.ub3rgeek.net/2009/12/29/bluetooth-dun-with-blackberry-9700-t-mobile-and-ubuntu-9-10/
    which makes me think that it might have something to do with Blackberry Device software 5.0.

    Do you have any ideas what I might do to get it going? I can’t let my co-workers know that their windoze boxes can do something that my linux box can’t, I just can’t.

    Thanks Again!

One Trackback

  1. By BlackBerry tether with Ubuntu 9.10 - Kyle Cordes on December 15, 2009 at 6:09 pm

    [...] out there about how to use a tethered BlackBerry internet connection with Ubuntu 9.10. Here is one that actually works. It uses Barry, BlackBerry support software generously provided by Net Direct [...]

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