PC World Advent 4211/Vodafone mobile broadband bundle, and Linux?

I'm planning to buy a netbook of some sort [1], and am very tempted by
the PC World offer which bundles the rather nice Advent 4211 with a
1 GB Vodafone mobile broadband contract.

However, I plan to install Linux (specifically Ubuntu) onto the netbook,
and would just like to check if anybody knows whether the broadband
dongle supplied with this deal (do you get to choose which one?) will
work (and preferably without too much hassle) with Linux/Ubuntu? If I
do get a choice of dongle, which one is the best to pick for
Linux-friendliness?


[1] Although I have a horrible feeling that I am going to sorely miss
those extra 168 pixel rows that I would like to have seen every larger
netbook include, but on the other hand I certainly can't afford a
higher-end compact laptop, and entry-level standard laptops are all too
bulky/heavy for my needs..


Thanks for any advice,

David.

--
David M. -- Edinburgh, Scotland. --[en,fr,(de) <-- corrections welcome]
*Please remove quotes not needed for context and interleave reply text*
*No-context, excess-quoted, slug-trailed, zero-content posts filtered.*

David M <david@bogus.domain.dom.invalid> wrote:
> However, I plan to install Linux (specifically Ubuntu) onto the netbook,
> and would just like to check if anybody knows whether the broadband
> dongle supplied with this deal (do you get to choose which one?) will
> work (and preferably without too much hassle) with Linux/Ubuntu? If I
> do get a choice of dongle, which one is the best to pick for
> Linux-friendliness?

The Huawei E220 seems to be fairly common, and well supported by Linux. I
don't know what you get on Vodafone, but it's Three's white dongle. Find a
picture of the E220 and compare it to Vodafone's offerings. It's also a
EUR15 third-party unlock if you ever need it.

Theo

David M wrote:
> I'm planning to buy a netbook of some sort
....
> However, I plan to install Linux (specifically Ubuntu)

This probably won't suit you, but you never know... might be worth a
read anyhow:

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/aug08/6486

It's about putting Ubuntu on the OLPC so that it works as a netbook.

Frank

David M wrote:
> I'm planning to buy a netbook of some sort [1], and am very tempted by
> the PC World offer which bundles the rather nice Advent 4211 with a
> 1 GB Vodafone mobile broadband contract.
>
> However, I plan to install Linux (specifically Ubuntu) onto the netbook,
> and would just like to check if anybody knows whether the broadband
> dongle supplied with this deal (do you get to choose which one?) will
> work (and preferably without too much hassle) with Linux/Ubuntu? If I
> do get a choice of dongle, which one is the best to pick for
> Linux-friendliness?

I'd agree with Theo that the E220 is well supported - it worked fine
with my Eee PC on the standard OS. Though I don't know if Vodafone still
supply the E220 - I think it might have been replaced with newer/smaller
models (probably also Huawei).

Vodafone do provide Linux drivers for their USB modems here, though I'm
not sure exactly which models it works with:
http://www.betavine.net/bvportal/web/linux_drivers

--
Craig Wallace
http://craig.neogeo.org.uk
http://www.neogeo.org.uk