Re: modem-modeswitch versus usb-modeswitch aka future of Mobile

[Dan Williams <dcbw@redhat.com>]

On Thu, 2010-02-25 at 06:58 -0800, Dan Nicholson wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 2:05 AM, Peteris Krisjanis <pecisk@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi there!
> >
> > I am Peteris Krisjanis, and I'm doing testing and debbuging Ubuntu
> > distro - apps, hardware, translations, etc. As very regular Linux user
> > and practical advocate and migration specialist for 9 years, I am
> > quite interested for getting hardware "just work". I know it is
> > neverending story, but it shouldn't keep me and us from trying :)
> >
> > Anyway, I am posting my first post to this list to get more clear
> > picture about what's happening with mobile broadband modems within
> > Linux environment. Current situation is (as far as I understand):
> >
> > * We have some modeswitching stuff in kernel, but everyone would happy
> > to see it go to userspace, which is quite understandable;
> > * We have modem-modeswitch app in udev rules, which handles only few
> > manufacturers. With some tweaking it can automagically work with other
> > dongles, but it is not a right way to do it. It is also abandoned;

Yes, usb_modeswitch should be used instead.  The only piece of
modem-modeswitch which is not available in usb_modeswitch already is for
the MobileAction phone cables.  But not too many people have those
(besides me).

> > * And finally we have usb-modeswitch app, which is independent tool to
> > do a switching and is very widely used and and actively maintained by
> > Josua Dietze
> >
> > As a user and someone of Ubuntu community, I would like to know what
> > Linux hotplug/udev people think about usb-modeswitch direction, is it
> > right and "blessed" way to do it? So far it seems only *working*
> > effort to support mode switching for mobile broadband modems, which
> > are very widely used. This answer is important, as Ubuntu devs are
> > looking to include it by default in distro, so we can get user's
> > mobile broadband dongles working out of box in most situations.

As far as I'm concerned, usb_modeswitch is currently the best way to
accomplish this task.  I believe that the usb_modeswitch developers have
addressed all my concerns with out-of-the-box support via udev rules.
It makes sense to do all this in one place, and usb_modeswitch is the
best place to do that right now.

Dan