Use your blackberry phone as modem (tethering)

You can now use your blackberry as a modem (tether) on Linux and Mac OS X. The utility is called Berry4all.


Disclaimer: I don't have a blackberry and therefore cannot test if this utility actually works. What I can do is walk you through the installation of Berry4all on KDE4.

Open a terminal and type in the following command:

sudo apt-get install python libusb-dev ppp python-usb python-wxgtk2.8

This will install all the necessary components that Berry4all depends on. Answer Y (uppercase) when you are prompt to install additional packages.

Now we are going to download the source code for Berry4all. Put the following url in your browser and download the compressed file to your desktop:

http://www.colar.net/websvn/filedetails.php?repname=src&path=%2Fbbtether%2Fbbtether.tgz

When the download is finished, navigate with Dolphin (KDE's file manager) to your desktop folder (or wherever you have downloaded the berry4all file). Right-click on the file and select the 'extract archive here, autodetect subfolder' option. This will extract (uncompress) the file and put the contents in a folder named bbtether. You can now select the bbtether folder and look at the contents.


It is at this point where people new to Linux fall out of the bus. All they see is a bunch of files and nothing looks like an executable. If you from the Windows world the first thing you going to look for is a file that ends with exe extension. No such luck. What you need to do is to train your eyes to look for files that ends with the '.sh' extension. These are shell scripts. If you look in the bbtether folder you will see there is a file called berry4all.sh

The berry4all.sh cannot be executed by itself. You can open this file with a text editor and you will see that all it contains are shell commands. You need to invoke a program that can read and execute the commands contained the berry4all.sh file. The program to use for that is called BASH (Bourne-Again SHell).

One way to execute berry4all.sh is to open a terminal, navigate to the bbtether folder and issuing the following command:

sh berry4all.sh

A better way is to create a shortcut that will do this for you without going through the terminal. Right-click anywhere in bbtether folder with Dolphin. Select the Create New option and then select the Link to Application option.

You will be presented with a window that will allow you to configure the properties of the shortcut. You can pick a new icon (simply click on the icon that looks like a question mark). You can also pick a meaningful name for the shortcut.

Click on the Application tab. This is where the real action happens.

In the command field enter the following text:

/bin/bash berry4all.sh

In the work path field enter the following text:

/home/your-user-id-here/Desktop/bbtether/

Click on Ok when you are done and you will now have a brand new shiny icon in the bbtether folder. Click on the icon to run Berry4all.


You can also use KDE's menu editor to add an item to your menus for berry4all (the fields that you fill in are the same as for the shortcut).

http://linux.digitalsp.com