Ade Malsasa Akbar contact
Senior author, Open Source enthusiast.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015 at 11:49

The problem when you are using USB modem in Ubuntu, is, sometimes you will need wvdial but wvdial itself need to be installed first. Fortunately, Ubuntu included wvdial in its official ISO since long time ago. Further, it means wvdial is available in Ubuntu LiveCD but it is not when Ubuntu have been installed. In LiveCD, just command sudo apt-get install wvdial and you install it completely without internet. Yes, Linux Mint has same behavior too. It is probably a secret only few people know. To install it, just insert your Ubuntu CD (same version, same architecture) and command apt-cdrom it to be your additional repository.

Ubuntu

 

  1. In your installed Ubuntu, open Terminal.
  2. Do command: sudo apt-cdrom add
  3. Terminal (apt-cdrom) will ask for Ubuntu CD. Insert it. WARNING: insert only Ubuntu CD which has same version and same architecture (example: CD 12.04 32 bit for 12.04 32 bit).
  4. Press Enter.
  5. Terminal (apt-cdrom) will scan it and create its index (called source list).
  6. Do command: sudo apt-get update
  7. Do command: sudo apt-get install wvdial
  8. You will have wvdial + dependencies installed from Ubuntu CD without any internet connection.
Yes, offline completely. Now you can connect your modem to internet.

Linux Mint

 

Same like Ubuntu except number 3. Insert Linux Mint CD, not Ubuntu CD.

Explanation

 

In Ubuntu 14.04:
  1. wvdial has 4 dependencies: libwvstreams4.6-base, libwvstreams4.6-base, libuniconf4.6, wvdial.
  2. If you are failed with this tutorial, go to http://packages.ubuntu.com and download one by one those 4 packages. That four downloading is perfectly same with this tutorial except the download source. This guide = CDROM, that four downloading = internet.
  3. wvdial and its three dependencies are from main component of Ubuntu repository.
  4. Yes, Ubuntu and Linux Mint includes some packages of main component of repository including wvdial in their ISO. So, this tutorial is not restricted for wvdial only.
  5. Installing wvdial in Ubuntu or Linux Mint LiveCD is working perfectly, but won't in Ubuntu or Linux Mint permanently installed ones.
  6. This guide is adaptable to all Ubuntu versions and Linux Mint too. Not restricted to 14.04 only.