Connecting to Sprint/VirginMobile wimax broadband with drxvi314.ko or bcm_wimax.ko

[PJJ]

Trying to establish a broadband connection to Sprint/Virgin Mobile wimax on Kubuntu 13.04. My earlier efforts to get the drxvi314.ko (Sprint driver) to work succeeded. The native linux driver bcm_wimax is also working for me. Both drivers attempt to connect to the broadband server.

And both report identical error messages, such as
EAP supplicant is OFF.
This is the most severe one.

I checked the location of most of the relevant files and found them. My wimaxd.conf files must be correct or I would not get the modem to search, scan and even connect before the authorization fails.

I am unclear at this point about EAP supplicant and its correct usage. Does anyone have detailed experience with that, please?

This new post is a continuation of the thread at http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthr...er-drvxi314-ko.
Detailed reports on my quest to get the driver drxvi314.ko and the native linux driver bcm_wimax.ko to work are posted at
http://pastebin.com/u/pjj90292.

I will post excerpts from the pertinent log file(s) for my most recent connection attempts on pastebin as well.
The following post at
http://pastebin.com/GJyWag1S
shows some of the results of my early attempts to connect.

[NickStone]

This Virgin Mobile wimax broadband, is it a 3G "dongle" by any chance? If it is, you can set it up quite easily in NetworkManager under the mobile tab.

[PJJ]

Yes it is and no it is not.
The modem is a Franklin U600 (Virgin Mobile version). It is a USB modem with a 3G section from Qualcomm and a 4G from Beceem.
The 3G part works just fine and is set up and controlled with Network Manager (NM).
The 4G part is not a separate modem on a port but rather a virtual modem that is controlled by AT@T commands through either minicom/picocom or similar application.
This is the part that causes problems in Linux operating systems.

Using the native Linux 4G driver bcm_wimax NM recognizes the 4G modem part and lists it as a 'wired ethernet'. Setup screen is identical to the existing screen for the wired ethernet connection eth0.

The challenge now is to find the correct working setup for EAP supplicant and other required authentication. My modem is detected but no IP and other data are assigned to it yet until a first linkup is achieved and an IP assigned to the 4g modem part.
Unfortunately, my windows installation (VB virtual) cannot connect any longer because something went wrong in the windows installation. And I do not want to reset the modem at this time in order not to lose any good Linux setup data.

If you look at the 802.1xxx setup screen in NM, you can see what information is required to make it work under NM.
I believe to know most of the required data but am not quite sure yet.
So, first I need to get rid of the EAP error (what causes it exactly) and then I can experiment with different data sets.
4G wimax is nice and relatively cheap when it works. It did it once under Windows for me.

[PJJ]

Just a brief notice:
I have a 13.04 installation that is no longer working. Until functionality is restored, I cannot work on making a 4G connection.
Stay tuned.

Meanwhile I am using XP to connect to 4G. This will also proved me with valuable log data that will eventually help in getting 4G to connect in Linux.