Using Sony Ericsson P1i as a GPRS/3G modem on Acer Aspire One

As I got the Aspire One just prior to travelling, I didn't have time to test using it for internet connectivity using my Sony Ericsson P1i as a GPRS modem. As I'm travelling again soon, I decided to iron out the process in advance.

First I tried using Windows XP running in VirtualBox, with the normal Sony Ericsson tools. This worked largely without any hitches.

On to Linux (Linpus Lite), using a post on bayan ni juan as a reference.

Here's how to do it -

Check to see that the phone is detected when you plug it in. You should see something like the following.

[user@localhost ~]$ dmesg
usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
usb 3-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
cdc_acm 3-1:1.1: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
cdc_acm 3-1:1.3: ttyACM1: USB ACM device
cdc_acm 3-1:1.5: ttyACM2: USB ACM device
usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_acm
drivers/usb/class/cdc-acm.c: v0.25:USB Abstract Control Model driver for USB modems and ISDN adapters

Check that wvdial is installed. It seems to come with the Aspire One.

[user@localhost ~]$ yum list wvdial
wvdial.i386 1.60-3.fc8 installed

Install gnome-ppp

[user@localhost ~]$ sudo yum install gnome-ppp
Installed: gnome-ppp.i386 0:0.3.23-4.fc8
Complete!

Run gnome-ppp -

[user@localhost ~]$ gnome-ppp

Unfortunately it needs to run as root to access the modem, so give the root password (or invoke via sudo).

Click Setup
Click "Detect" to detect the modem
It should find /dev/ttyACM1
Speed 460800

Add the phone number for GPRS *99#
Phone numbers, *99# (you can use *99***10# to use profile 10 from the phone. I have the phone setup for WAP etc already, so this seems to be unnecessary).

Under init strings, my operator Telia suggests AT+cgdcont=10,,"online.telia.se"
this seems to be unnecessary, perhaps for the same reason cited earlier.

All other settings I left unchanged.

Quit and re-run gnome-ppp (perhaps not required)

Give a Username (test)
Give a Password (test)
Check the box "Remember password"
This seems to be required to workaround a bug in gnome-ppp. Without the box checked, gnome-ppp doesn't respond to the wvdial prompt "Please enter password (or empty password to stop):" - it took me a while to figure this out :)

Press connect, and hopefully you'll get a connection, with IP address, DNS etc.

VirtualBox on Acer Aspire One

I'd started to install VMware on my Aspire One (Linux), when I came across
macles* post on VirtualBox. In a couple of hours I had it up and running, with Windows XP as the guest OS, nice.

When reading about VirtualBox, the thing that excited me most was the support for USB devices - ie. it can 'pipe' them through to the guest OS, such that devices not supported in the host OS can be used in the guest OS... nice.

So I gave it a try - first was my HP Laserjet M1005 MFP, printer and scanner - no problems. Install the drivers (in XP), plug in the device, tell VirtualBox to enable it, XP detects it and out comes the test page. Similarly for the Scanner. Mounting ISO images of CDs (eg. install CDs) works beautifully too, something XP itself isn't so good at.

Then the Sony Ericsson P1i PC suite. This is a buggy thing to start with... I can no longer get it to install on my Vista work PC, how about XP under VirtualBox? Basically, no problems! I may have to run VirtualBox on my Vista laptop too :)

It's really nice when things work so well.

Converting videos to play on the Sony Ericsson P1i

All the playing around with transcoders for the Creative Zen got me thinking about watching videos on my Sony Ericsson P1i. It has roughly the same size and resolution screen as the Zen, although probably less colours, and a even more limited video player.

First I tried using transcode, but quickly learned that the P1i video player likes 3GP files, which use MPEG4/H.263/H.264 for video, and AMR/AAC for audio. Both of these codecs have license/patent issues, which means they aren't built into your usual rpm files.

I then found this blog post and was inspired to try using ffmpeg. The vanilla rpm on my aspire one didn't include aac/amr, so I gave source building a try.

Install SVN, and checkout the source for ffmpeg
sudo yum install svn
svn checkout svn://svn.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg/trunk ffmpeg

Install amr and faac codecs
sudo yum install amrnb amrnb-devel
sudo yum install faac-devel

Configure and make ffmpeg
./configure --enable-libfaac --enable-libamr-nb --enable-nonfree
make

Convert avi file to 3gp
./ffmpeg -i /mnt/nas/somebody.avi -s qcif -vcodec h263 -acodec libfaac -ab 128000 -y somebody.3gp

Copy to phone, and play
cp somebody.3gp /media/PHONE\ CARD/video/

it works!
I found that the player couldn't handle resolutions other than qcif (176x144). More experimentation is required to see what else it can handle.

I've read that H.264 would be worth trying, and perhaps the audio rate I'm using is an overkill. This post also is interesting.

Still, I'm not that sure I actually want to watch video on the phone... so perhaps I'll just end here :)

Happy New Year!