Mandriva 2008 vs LG U830 phone

Hi

we got an LG U830 mobile phone as a prezzie. It's a camera and MP3
player as well as a 3G phone. So we should be able to copy photos and
MP3 files between the PC and the phone. Unfortunately Mandriva does not
recognise it as a flash drive, as it does any other MP3 player in the
house. It recognises the phone as a USB modem, but the PC already has an
internet connection so I don't know what I should do with that.

A small CD came with the phone; naturally the software on it only runs
on various flavours of Windows. I have tried running them under
Crossover 6.0.0 ([url]http://www.codeweavers.com[/url]) but most of the programs
simply will not run. Seem to be missing some Visual C++ runtimes; I have
tried downloading the runtimes from Microsoft but I cannot get them to
install in a Crossover Wine bottle. And maybe a windows emulator would
be barking up the wrong tree anyhow. (The software that does run is
unable to connect to the phone, I cannot make sense of it and it has no
manual or help that I can find. So that's no good either.)

I have also tried to rtfw; googling for a USB driver to connect the
phone to my PC, using search strings like
lg u830 usb driver linux
without any success. Most results, if they're in a language I understand
- regrettably, a limited set - mention linux in a sidebar as a link,
rather than saying how I get a USB driver for Linux to talk to this phone.

The user guide for the phone is also no help at all.

Would anyone here have experience of such phones, and know if they can
be used with Mandriva at all? Are phones like this supposed to look to
Linux like flash drives, as cameras and MP3 players do when I plug them
in? Is there a native Linux program for doing the downloads? - I did
find gnokii in google, but it does not seem to support any LG stuff.

Thanks

Frank

Frank Peelo wrote:
[color=blue]
> LG U830[/color]

Google is your friend.

Your device is on its modem profile. It shouldn't be.
Have a look in your manual.

If not, then, well, I have no solution.

Amrein-Marie Christophe wrote:[color=blue]
> Frank Peelo wrote:
>
>[color=green]
>> LG U830[/color]
>
>
> Google is your friend.[/color]

Normally yes; but as described in the original post Google was not being
any help with this. Found lots of matches, but no useful ones.
[color=blue]
> Your device is on its modem profile. It shouldn't be.
> Have a look in your manual.[/color]

The manual for the phone is useless. It does tell me that USB is a way
to connect to the PC, but that's all it says on the subject. The
Connectivity section says nothing about connecting with USB, or what can
be done with it. We have been unable to find anything about modem
profile in the menus of the phone. The shop which sold the thing didn't
know anything about a modem profile either. Think we're barking up the
wrong tree there.

KMobileTools was able to connect to the phone over USB, but all I could
see were a few SMS messages. Couldn't see any pictures or MP3 files at all.

Left me thinking I might be better off having a copy of Windows somewhere.

Then I got access to a Windows XP machine; installed the LG software on
that, and it was no better there than under Crossover. Doesn't crash on
XP; but it doesn't show the photos or MP3 files either. And the phone
comes up as a modem there too.
[color=blue]
> If not, then, well, I have no solution.[/color]

Fortunately, a colleague had an idea.

It's not a perfect solution - it's slow, and required the purchase of
extra hardware, but at least the phone can now be used.

Got a bluetooth dongle in the nearest Maplin store. (No idea what model;
the box had been nicked off the display.) Plugged it into my Mandriva
box. The Bluetooth stuff that got installed with kMobileTools recognised
it. I had googled for a recent compatibility list without success, but
it looks like they're a standard part now or something. Plug & pray.

I can send files to the phone with OBEX, and the phone can send photos
back the same way.

It's nowhere near as easy as copying files on or off a USB flash stick,
but it will do.

Frank