apt-get to upgrade kernel, but w/ no web connection

dogpatch · 07-01-2011, 08:12 PM

Recently tried to get online using a mobile modem from Huawei. I can connect thru Windows, but my 2.6.10 kernel does not recognize the modem. I understand that this was fixed as of kernel 2.6.20, so i would like to upgrade my kernel without a completely new installation or recompile, if that's possible.

The problem is that apt-get wants to go online to retrieve and install the new package. I can connect via Windows, download the package and then try to tell apt-get to look in a local folder for the package via a new line in /etc/apt/search.list. But apt-get is still trying to retrieve things from a web source, and fails when it can't connect. Of course, this is a catch-22 as i need the new kernel before i can use my modem to go online.

Perhaps i am completely clueless as to how apt-get is supposed to work, and/or in trying to upgrade my kernel in this manner, since i have never done either of these before.

Are there other ways to upgrade my kernel without a complete recompile?

Hungry ghost · 07-01-2011, 09:48 PM

There's no need to use apt-get to install packages locally (although, you could set up a local repo, if you needed to), but simply use dpkg -i /path/to/local/package in order to install the new kernel image.

edit: Just to clarify, apt-get/aptitude/synaptic allow you to install packages hosted in some online repository (or a local one, in case you set up one, but this is not very common), and dpkg allows you to install packages locally, one by one.

Regards.

dogpatch · 07-03-2011, 10:31 AM

Thanks, odiseo77. I ended up using kpackage, same general idea.

TobiSGD · 07-03-2011, 10:33 AM

May I ask which version of Debian you use that you have a 2.6.10 kernel?

dogpatch · 07-03-2011, 10:54 AM

It's actually Mepis, which is Debian stable. I'm in my Windows partition as i write this, and can't tell you the version number. It's an early Mepis, about 5 years old.

TobiSGD · 07-03-2011, 11:10 AM

Then your system is unsupported for a long time, it gets no security updates and it is somewhat impossible to install newer software on it. I would strongly recommend to install a newer version.

dogpatch · 07-03-2011, 03:34 PM

By 'newer version' i assume you mean a completely new os, from a cd or iso mirror. You are probably correct, and certainly know more than i, who haven't compiled a kernel since the early 1990's.

But i'm puzzled: there are posts here by folks who have upgraded their kernel from 2.4.xx to the latest. And i can't upgrade from 2.6.10 to 2.6.20 ??

TobiSGD · 07-03-2011, 03:40 PM

Of course you can, if the rest of the OS can work with that kernel. But the kernel is not the only part of the OS. All other components you have installed are also outdated, unsupported and have widely known security problems. In short, your machine will be wide open to any attacker, as soon you are connected to the net. Therefore I would recommend to update to a newer version.

widget · 07-03-2011, 03:51 PM

Linux whaco 2.6.39-2-amd64 #1 SMP Wed Jun 8 11:01:04 UTC 2011 x86_64 GNU/Linux

That is the result of my running "uname -a" on the install of Debian that I am on right now.

As you can see, there are several generations between that and the kernel you are using. There is a great gap between 2.6.10 and 2.6.20.

I do not know what all those differences would be but they would be substancial. Between 2.6.20 and 2.6.30 the file systems supported by the kernel changed.

You could, assuming mepis uses the same tools as most debian based distros, get teh deb packages from somewhere (public library computer) and have them on a disk and install with gdebi.

I think you are asking for big problems just to screw up a working OS that is no longer supported. If you like it and want to keep using it that is fine with me. Don't go abusing the poor thing that has served you well for quite a while.

dogpatch · 07-04-2011, 09:27 AM

OK, your warnings are well noted, and thank you for them. I still have the old install cd, so i suppose i could also reinstall my current os if i totally blow this one up.

Here is my best explanation of where i am right now:

I am running an admittedly old os on old hardware. It serves the purpose except that i cannot connect to the net with a recently acquired Huawei modem. The reason for this is that the modem contains a fake driver (??) to make it work under Windows. This cause my os to mount it as a cd instead of a usb device, and so further attempts to access the device are doomed. This anomaly was given a workaround in kernels 2.6.20 and later, hence the motive for this thread.

I have run across another workaround which promised me access to my Huawei modem without a kernel upgrade, but it employs udev to do some magic with the device handling. My system does not use udev, nor have i been able to find a way to retrofit udev into my system.

Am i simply SOL? Time to buy a new 'puter?

TobiSGD · 07-04-2011, 09:43 AM

If you post the specs of your computer we can give you advice if you need a new computer. Linux is not Windows, you don't necessarily need new hardware for a newer version of the OS. There are even distros specifically aimed to work on older computers.

tredegar · 07-04-2011, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Am i simply SOL?

Not quite.
To switch your modem from appearing as a CD ROM to working as a modem, all you need is usb_modeswitch which can be called by udev (which makes lots of things automagically "just work"), but you can also call it yourself (as root) and the CD ROM will disappear, to be replaced by /dev/ttyUSBx which is your modem.

It's worth a try: Get usb_modeswitch here and read the HOWTOs. You'll probably have to compile it from source. You may run into dependency problems.

Quote:

Time to buy a new 'puter?

Not necessarily, but it really is time to update your linux distro (security, convenience etc.)

dogpatch · 07-04-2011, 11:27 AM

It's an AMD Athlon 1.3Mhz with a 40G hard drive and 1.5 G ram

This whole thing is about my inability to use my Huawei usb modem. If it is of interest, here is the output of dmesg. You can see the Huawei being recognized and mounted at one point, but it shows up on my desktop under two icons. One is a cd icon, through which i can access and even write to the writable space on the modem. The other is the usb flash drive icon, which is where it rightfully fits. When i try to access it that way, i get a "medium not found" error, similar to trying to access a cd drive with no cd in it. My understanding is that this is caused by some smoke-and-mirrors within the data on the modem to make it work with Windows. This causes it to appear as a cd drive to my Linux os. The workaround for this problem was, i guess, included in later Linux kernels, hence the motive for my original post.

Code:

Linux version 2.6.10 (root@mepis-msi) (gcc version 3.3.5 (Debian 1:3.3.5-8)) #1 Wed Feb 23 16:54:53 EST 2005
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
 BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009fc00 (usable)
 BIOS-e820: 000000000009fc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000000e8000 - 00000000000ea000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000005fff0000 (usable)
 BIOS-e820: 000000005fff0000 - 000000005fff8000 (ACPI data)
 BIOS-e820: 000000005fff8000 - 0000000060000000 (ACPI NVS)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000fec00000 - 00000000fec01000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000fee00000 - 00000000fee01000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000ffee0000 - 00000000fff00000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000fffc0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
639MB HIGHMEM available.
896MB LOWMEM available.
On node 0 totalpages: 393200
  DMA zone: 4096 pages, LIFO batch:1
  Normal zone: 225280 pages, LIFO batch:16
  HighMem zone: 163824 pages, LIFO batch:16
DMI 2.3 present.
ACPI: RSDP (v000 AMI                                   ) @ 0x000fa260
ACPI: RSDT (v001 AMIINT SiS740XX 0x00001000 MSFT 0x0100000b) @ 0x5fff0000
ACPI: FADT (v001 AMIINT SiS740XX 0x00000011 MSFT 0x0100000b) @ 0x5fff0030
ACPI: MADT (v001 AMIINT SiS740XX 0x00001000 MSFT 0x0100000b) @ 0x5fff00c0
ACPI: DSDT (v001    SiS      740 0x00000100 MSFT 0x0100000d) @ 0x00000000
ACPI: PM-Timer IO Port: 0x808
ACPI: Local APIC address 0xfee00000
ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x01] lapic_id[0x00] enabled)
Processor #0 6:4 APIC version 16
ACPI: LAPIC_NMI (acpi_id[0x01] high edge lint[0x1])
Built 1 zonelists
Kernel command line: root=/dev/hda4 nomce quiet splash=verbose
bootsplash: verbose mode.
Found and enabled local APIC!
mapped APIC to ffffd000 (fee00000)
Initializing CPU#0
PID hash table entries: 4096 (order: 12, 65536 bytes)
Detected 1300.457 MHz processor.
Using pmtmr for high-res timesource
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Dentry cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Memory: 1554440k/1572800k available (2660k kernel code, 17284k reserved, 864k data, 200k init, 655296k highmem)
Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok.
Calibrating delay loop... 2580.48 BogoMIPS (lpj=1290240)
Security Framework v1.0.0 initialized
SELinux:  Initializing.
SELinux:  Starting in permissive mode
selinux_register_security:  Registering secondary module capability
Capability LSM initialized as secondary
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
CPU: After generic identify, caps: 0183fbff c1c7fbff 00000000 00000000
CPU: After vendor identify, caps:  0183fbff c1c7fbff 00000000 00000000
CPU: L1 I Cache: 64K (64 bytes/line), D cache 64K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: L2 Cache: 256K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: After all inits, caps:        0183fbff c1c7fbff 00000000 00000020
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm)  stepping 02
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
ACPI: setting ELCR to 0200 (from 0c20)
checking if image is initramfs...it isn't (bad gzip magic numbers); looks like an initrd
Freeing initrd memory: 90k freed
NET: Registered protocol family 16
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfdb01, last bus=2
mtrr: v2.0 (20020519)
ACPI: Subsystem revision 20050125
ACPI: Interpreter enabled
ACPI: Using PIC for interrupt routing
ACPI: PCI Root Bridge [PCI0] (00:00)
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
Uncovering SIS963 that hid as a SIS503 (compatible=0)
Enabling SiS 96x SMBus.
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0._PRT]
ACPI: Power Resource [URP1] (off)
ACPI: Power Resource [URP2] (off)
ACPI: Power Resource [FDDP] (off)
ACPI: Power Resource [LPTP] (off)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] (IRQs 3 4 5 7 10 *11 12 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] (IRQs 3 4 5 7 10 *11 12 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] (IRQs 3 4 5 7 *10 11 12 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] (IRQs 3 4 5 7 10 *11 12 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKE] (IRQs 3 4 *5 7 10 11 12 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKF] (IRQs 3 4 5 7 10 *11 12 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKG] (IRQs 3 4 5 7 *10 11 12 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKH] (IRQs 3 4 *5 7 10 11 12 14 15)
Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
SCSI subsystem initialized
usbcore: registered new driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new driver hub
PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing
** PCI interrupts are no longer routed automatically.  If this
** causes a device to stop working, it is probably because the
** driver failed to call pci_enable_device().  As a temporary
** workaround, the "pci=routeirq" argument restores the old
** behavior.  If this argument makes the device work again,
** please email the output of "lspci" to bjorn.helgaas@hp.com
** so I can fix the driver.
audit: initializing netlink socket (disabled)
audit(1309770608.059:0): initialized
highmem bounce pool size: 64 pages
Total HugeTLB memory allocated, 0
SELinux:  Registering netfilter hooks
Initializing Cryptographic API
vesafb: probe of vesafb0 failed with error -6
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7.
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
Real Time Clock Driver v1.12
Failed to disable AUX port, but continuing anyway... Is this a SiS?
If AUX port is really absent please use the 'i8042.noaux' option.
serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12
serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
io scheduler noop registered
io scheduler anticipatory registered
io scheduler deadline registered
io scheduler cfq registered
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size 1024 blocksize
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
SIS5513: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:02.5
SIS5513: chipset revision 0
SIS5513: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
SIS5513: SiS 962/963 MuTIOL IDE UDMA133 controller
    ide0: BM-DMA at 0xff00-0xff07, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA
    ide1: BM-DMA at 0xff08-0xff0f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA
Probing IDE interface ide0...
hda: WDC WD400BB-00DEA0, ATA DISK drive
elevator: using anticipatory as default io scheduler
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
Probing IDE interface ide1...
ide1: Wait for ready failed before probe !
hdc: LG CD-RW CED-8080B, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
Probing IDE interface ide2...
ide2: Wait for ready failed before probe !
Probing IDE interface ide3...
ide3: Wait for ready failed before probe !
Probing IDE interface ide4...
ide4: Wait for ready failed before probe !
Probing IDE interface ide5...
ide5: Wait for ready failed before probe !
hda: max request size: 128KiB
hda: 78165360 sectors (40020 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=65535/16/63, UDMA(100)
hda: cache flushes not supported
 hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4
hdc: ATAPI 32X CD-ROM CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache, DMA
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
3ware Storage Controller device driver for Linux v1.26.02.000.
3ware 9000 Storage Controller device driver for Linux v2.26.02.001.
libata version 1.10 loaded.
ieee1394: Initialized config rom entry `ip1394'
ieee1394: raw1394: /dev/raw1394 device initialized
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKH] enabled at IRQ 5
PCI: setting IRQ 5 as level-triggered
ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:00:03.3[D] -> GSI 5 (level, low) -> IRQ 5
ehci_hcd 0000:00:03.3: EHCI Host Controller
ehci_hcd 0000:00:03.3: irq 5, pci mem 0xcffdf000
ehci_hcd 0000:00:03.3: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
PCI: cache line size of 64 is not supported by device 0000:00:03.3
ehci_hcd 0000:00:03.3: USB 2.0 initialized, EHCI 1.00, driver 26 Oct 2004
hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 1-0:1.0: 6 ports detected
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard on isa0060/serio0
input: PS/2 Logitech Mouse on isa0060/serio1
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP: routing cache hash table of 16384 buckets, 128Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 524288 bind 65536)
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 15
ACPI wakeup devices: 
PCI0 PS2K UAR1 UAR2 USB1 USB2 USB3 USB4 S139  LAN  MDM  AUD SLPB 
ACPI: (supports S0 S1 S4 S5)
RAMDISK: Couldn't find valid RAM disk image starting at 0.
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 200k freed
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
scsi0 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 3
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 3
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
usb 1-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 4
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
  Vendor: Kingston  Model: DataTraveler G3   Rev: PMAP
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 00
  Vendor: HUAWEI    Model: MMC Storage       Rev: 2.31
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
  Vendor: HUAWEI    Model: Mass Storage      Rev: 2.31
  Type:   CD-ROM                             ANSI SCSI revision: 02
SCSI device sda: 7827456 512-byte hdwr sectors (4008 MB)
sda: assuming Write Enabled
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
SCSI device sda: 7827456 512-byte hdwr sectors (4008 MB)
sda: assuming Write Enabled
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
 sda: sda1
Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
usb-storage: device scan complete
Attached scsi removable disk sdb at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
EXT3 FS on hda4, internal journal
usb-storage: device scan complete
sr0: scsi-1 drive
Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
usb-storage: device scan complete
Attached scsi generic sg0 at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun 0,  type 0
Attached scsi generic sg1 at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0,  type 0
Attached scsi generic sg2 at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0,  type 5
inserting floppy driver for 2.6.10
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
ohci_hcd: 2004 Nov 08 USB 1.1 'Open' Host Controller (OHCI) Driver (PCI)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKE] enabled at IRQ 5
ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:00:03.0[A] -> GSI 5 (level, low) -> IRQ 5
ohci_hcd 0000:00:03.0: OHCI Host Controller
ohci_hcd 0000:00:03.0: irq 5, pci mem 0xcfffd000
ohci_hcd 0000:00:03.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 2-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKF] enabled at IRQ 11
PCI: setting IRQ 11 as level-triggered
ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:00:03.1[B] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11
ohci_hcd 0000:00:03.1: OHCI Host Controller
ohci_hcd 0000:00:03.1: irq 11, pci mem 0xcfffe000
ohci_hcd 0000:00:03.1: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3
ohci_hcd 0000:00:03.0: wakeup
hub 3-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 3-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKG] enabled at IRQ 10
PCI: setting IRQ 10 as level-triggered
ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:00:03.2[C] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ 10
ohci_hcd 0000:00:03.2: OHCI Host Controller
ohci_hcd 0000:00:03.2: irq 10, pci mem 0xcffff000
ohci_hcd 0000:00:03.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 4
hub 4-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 4-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
usb 2-1: new low speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 2
USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v2.2
usbcore: registered new driver hiddev
input: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [Logitech USB Optical Mouse] on usb-0000:00:03.0-1
usbcore: registered new driver usbhid
drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: v2.0:USB HID core driver
ts: Compaq touchscreen protocol output
ACPI: Power Button (FF) [PWRF]
ACPI: Sleep Button (CM) [SLPB]
ibm_acpi: ec object not found
powernow-k8: Processor cpuid 642 not supported
powernow: No powernow capabilities detected
cpufreq: No nForce2 chipset.
Adding 2972016k swap on /dev/hda3.  Priority:1 extents:1
EXT3 FS on hda4, internal journal
ndiswrapper version 1.1 loaded (preempt=yes,smp=no)
usbcore: registered new driver ndiswrapper
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] enabled at IRQ 10
ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:00:02.7[C] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ 10
intel8x0_measure_ac97_clock: measured 49759 usecs
intel8x0: clocking to 48000
sis900.c: v1.08.07 11/02/2003
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] enabled at IRQ 11
ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:00:04.0[A] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11
eth0: VIA 6103 PHY transceiver found at address 1.
eth0: Using transceiver found at address 1 as default
eth0: SiS 900 PCI Fast Ethernet at 0xd400, IRQ 11, 00:19:21:89:ff:2c.
FAT: bogus number of reserved sectors
VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev hda1.
FAT: bogus number of reserved sectors
VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev hda1.
NTFS driver 2.1.22 [Flags: R/W MODULE].
NTFS volume version 3.1.
Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 8 ports, IRQ sharing disabled
ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
ttyS1 at I/O 0x2f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
Linux Kernel Card Services
  options:  [pci] [cardbus] [pm]
eth0: Media Link Off
NET: Registered protocol family 17
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2002 Netfilter core team
ip_conntrack version 2.1 (8192 buckets, 65536 max) - 300 bytes per conntrack
FAT: bogus number of reserved sectors
VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev hda1.
FAT: bogus number of reserved sectors
VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev hda1.
NTFS volume version 3.1.
parport0: PC-style at 0x378 (0x778) [PCSPP(,...)]
parport0: irq 7 detected
lp0: using parport0 (polling).
lp0: console ready
NET: Registered protocol family 10
Disabled Privacy Extensions on device c0420c40(lo)
IPv6 over IPv4 tunneling driver
drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial support registered for Generic
usbserial_generic 1-5:1.0: Generic converter detected
usb 1-5: Generic converter now attached to ttyUSB0
usbserial_generic 1-5:1.1: Generic converter detected
usb 1-5: Generic converter now attached to ttyUSB1
usbserial_generic 1-5:1.2: Generic converter detected
usb 1-5: Generic converter now attached to ttyUSB2
usbserial_generic 1-5:1.3: Generic converter detected
usb 1-5: Generic converter now attached to ttyUSB3
usbcore: registered new driver usbserial_generic
usbcore: registered new driver usbserial
drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial Driver core v2.0
eth0: no IPv6 routers present

Maybe this should eb a whole new thread?

Anyway, thanks.

TobiSGD · 07-04-2011, 11:37 AM

With a machine like that I would just go and install a recent, but not too hardware-hungry distribution, like Debian, Linux Mint, Xubuntu or Slackware (using XFCE). This will solve your problems, and you will have bugfixes, security updates and recent software. Should be no problem.

dogpatch · 07-04-2011, 11:45 AM

Thanks, tredegar, for your post, which i didn't see until after posting my response to TobiSGD. I will look into usb_modeswitch as you suggest.