Sony Ericsson K750i and Linux
I just had a very strange experience. I hooked up my new Sony Ericsson K750i mobile phone via USB to my PC (running Linux 2.6.11 Debian unstable). And it just worked. I didn’t have to faff around with the USB driver as I’d had to for my Treo 600 a year ago. It just thought for a while, dumped several KB of its thoughts into syslog (I probably selected a debugging option when I built the kernel), and *ping* the memory stick in the phone appeared as /dev/sda. I just had to mount /dev/sda1 (vfat), and there it was.
Almost disappointing.
The phone is very nice, btw. Screen is good, mp3 playback is very good (even with the supplied earbuds — even through the speaker is not bad), camera is alright (for a phone). Organiser is rubbish: you can’t set up events without a time, or recurring events like birthdays, and the bold font used to identify dates with appointments in calendar view is barely different from the normal font. Sometimes I think I should just go back to a paper diary…
June 22nd, 2005 at 9:37 am
Same experience here. Everything works just as you might expect.
But I don’t agree with you that the organizer is rubbish. In particular, it *is* possible to set up birthdays (just go to the contact-list, edit an item and insert a birthday; you will be prompted whether or not to insert this birthday in your calendar) and for me that bold font is clearly distinct from the normal font.
It’s a shame that other recurring events aren’t possible though. But if that’s all!
June 22nd, 2005 at 9:43 pm
Good point on the birthdays, I discovered that myself after I wrote the article, been meaning to update it. But I really miss the ability to have untimed and multi-day events — those make up about 90% of what I want to put in there!
August 11th, 2005 at 9:40 pm
Some times I need to insert a birthday into the calendar but I don’t want to add a person into the phone book… So the calendar is not very good, i think.
I just bought this phone a week ago. I like it, but as I know it is imposible to sync it with Evolution (using multisync) yet. But I’m waitng for this ability.
I read my memory stick using a card reader. I can’t mount phone from FC2. Don’t know why 🙁 usbview can find it but I can’t just mount it like /dev/sda1.
sorry for my english.
August 12th, 2005 at 11:23 am
I don’t know about Linux but I can mount this phone using FreeBSD very easily even on FreeBSD 5.3. It gets recognized as /dev/da0s1 an I can mount it using regular mount_msdosfs /dev/da0s1 /mnt.
I haven’t tried evolution yet but I think it can’t be that difficult to sync with multisync
August 30th, 2005 at 7:17 am
I also use FreeBSD (5.4) and my Phone likes it. I plugged the phone, made a “dmesg” and saw what to mount. You can also mount this way:
– make shure, you are root,
– mount -t msdos /dev/your-dev /mountpoint
September 27th, 2005 at 6:21 am
In Gentoo, you just (as root) “mount -t vfat -o user /dev/sdc1 /mnt/usb” and it’s good to go. I guess that should be the same on FC2, but for the actual device… Found out which device it was by doing a “ls -ltr” in /dev… FYI. (Still have to figure the sync part out though… )
October 31st, 2005 at 12:57 am
I just ordered the SE K750i as part of my new Vodafone service – and only now have I googled for “linux sony ericsson k750i”: Am glad it appears to work!
Two questions:-
1) As I solely use Gentoo Linux 2005.1 for AMD64 and need to get a Bluetooth dongle, is there anything I should know or do? Possibly a subject for an entirely new forum; but what’s B/T compatibility like with Linux now?
2) SE k750i Firmware: Any currernt issues? I have read reports of upgrades fouling video playback and slowing down menus!!
Thanks y’all,
JT.
November 2nd, 2005 at 2:42 pm
2 Pavel Ivanov: it was easy to sync contacts to evolution, I didn’t experienced any problems.
2 JT: I’ve got D-Link DBT-122 USB Bluetooth dongle, works great (tested on Debian unstable).
November 25th, 2005 at 4:00 pm
I run Debian sarge on my IBM T42 with KDE as Desktop Interface.
Now I want to synchronize my K750i with the KOrganizer.
Could somebody tell how to do that by listing step by step what I have to do/type because I am (still) a Linux beginner..
Tank You very much,
Christian
December 6th, 2005 at 3:59 pm
Hello everybody, I found this site while googling for “k750i linux”. I did this to find a solution for my problem:
I’m using Kubuntu “Breezy Badger” 5.10 (Kernel 2.6.12-10-386) with KDE 3.5. When I plug the phone to the computer, it gets mounted correctly, and everything seems to work. Except when I want to transfer bigger files back and forth (bigger files are ~ > 200 kb for this example). When I transfer recorder videos from the phone to the computer, or music songs from the computer to the phone, I usually don’t get further than 15%, then I can see the kbps constantly dropping, until it says “stalled”. Nor the system neither the phone blocks, but the transfer simply hangs. I can cancel the transfer, retry it, and the same thing happens.
When I transfer files via Bluetooth everything goes fine, but of course it is much slower.
Does anyone have this problem too? Under Windows XP it goes just fine, but I had to install the drivers there to get it recognized (even to use it only as storage media). The problem for me is that I don’t always can access the Windows machine, and of course I would like it more to be able to use the phone on my own computer.
December 6th, 2005 at 6:23 pm
noOdle: Anything in your dmesg/syslog to suggest the USB driver is complaining? I’ve had no trouble transferring 15MB files to the phone under 2.6.12 (not Kubuntu but the distro shouldn’t matter, copying files is basically a kernel thing)…
Other thing to suggest is mount with the ‘sync’ option (mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/phone -o sync) so you can see exactly how much is being transferred. Do the copy on the commandline, and watch /mnt/phone in another terminal so you can see exactly how much gets transferred before it stops, and whether it’s the same amount every time.
December 15th, 2005 at 10:17 pm
Pavel,
Multisync (I use 0.83_pre20050414-r2 with gentoo) won’t work with (at least) the SE K750i. The reason is that obex connection headers aren’t used by multisync but required by the phone.
On connect multisync needs to store the connection id and include it with every subsequent obex request.
I don’t know if the multisync people discovered this bug/requirement already. Here is a patch against current versions (cvs and 20050414 snapshot).
http://triq.net/obexftp/multisync-20050414_connid.patch
The patch just ports the connection id functionality from ObexFTP to Multisync. You may need to delete and re-enter the synchronization pair if you failed to sync previously. The “calchangecounter†in “.multisync/?/localirmc†is set to an illegal value of “-1†then. Maybe you can just edit the file, YMMV.
December 21st, 2005 at 2:02 pm
I had the same experience, altough with freebsd. Plugged in cable, info about the device on console immediately appeared:
umass0: 8070i (ATAPI) over Bulk-Only; quirks = 0x0000
umass0:4:0:-1: Attached to scbus4
da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0
da0: Removable Direct Access SCSI-0 device
da0: 1.000MB/s transfers
da0: 61MB (126912 512 byte sectors: 64H 32S/T 61C)
Mounted da0s1 – took one click on my desktop (I have a shortcut for that, because my usb sticks provide the same device nodes) – and lo, there are all the files 🙂
The k750i is probably the most well thought out phone there is. No need to fuss around with proprietary progs (like on some nokia models) on winxp either, that won’t allow direct disk access at all…
There are so many functions, so well organized… I remember I stored some of my passwords as sms previously, and k750i has a function to store them more securely. I supports every connection function there is (bluetooth, usb, infra, etc., and it supports them well). Interface is usable, in fact, considering all the functions that are available, I am amazed at how well the menu system is organized. Shortcuts make sense – like the light function when you shoot a photo – and it is very nice that the “joystick” is configurable.
One thing I noted is that copy via USB is relatively slow, or not what I would expect from a usb 2.0 compliant device, but that’s only a minor gripe. There is a nice community providing free themes/ringtones/whatnot. I bookmarked these sites:
http://www.myk750.lasyk.net/K750i/Themes/
http://mobile.zipzic.com/
http://eseth.net/k750/download/
http://gallery.mobile9.com/index.php?
I also found a KDE theme for k750i :))) Well, it is not the nicest theme, but still, I was a bit surprised…
December 21st, 2005 at 2:46 pm
Thanks for the links, I was just pondering a new theme…
The Code Memo is good in principle (all handhelds should have some form of password-protected storage), but not particularly well executed: there are arbitrary limits on the length of each item you can store, and even worse, a limit of 10 items in total! This is pretty annoying when you know the phone has enough memory for hundreds…
December 21st, 2005 at 10:55 pm
Yeah, I noticed that (after writing up that comment). So I looked around a bit, and found this:
http://www.eaves.org/jon/j2me/pocket.shtml
You can download the .jar directly from here:
http://gallery.mobile9.com/f/19884/
Put it into MSSEMC/Media files/other, then browse there in your file manager on your phone, choose the app, install it, and you are set to go. Entering the passphrase was a bit confusing at first (I had to pull the joystck. down, then choose Edit, then enter the phrase, press OK, then in More, press OK again, but once I figured out that I can’t enter the pass directly, it was easier than it sounds)..
First time I have a “smartphone” (sort of) – so I’m still getting used to it’s extensibility 🙂
January 5th, 2006 at 10:30 am
Just my 2 cents:
minor problems with flash card: default 64Mb card is formatted as real FAT12 msdosfs. Though, FreeBSD think it’s not an actual FAT12 but FAT16, resulting in wierdly corrupted files if transferred from PC (over USB).
The phone is formatting the card in FAT12 if you choosed to initialize it. But work ok if you newfs it as FAT16. After that, everything works fine.
One more unsure thought: looks like phone is missing the card if it get’s re-formatted, so you need to switch it off and back on having USB unmounted and unplugged first.
PS. Anyway, I’m happy with this phone. Thinking of buying another 512Mb-1Gb flashcard to fit my MP3 requirements 🙂
January 6th, 2006 at 11:21 am
Dennis> That’s weird. You’re right the partition type gets labelled as FAT12, but doesn’t FAT12 have a maximum size of 16MB or 32MB? So I don’t see how a 64MB filesystem can really be FAT12?!
Linux seems to deal with it fine whatever it is, but I haven’t found anything that will actually tell me what type it is.
January 9th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
hi christian,
i have the same problem with my K750i. ich have no problems to mount the cardof the mubilephone via USB, but i can’t connect with multisync. i get an error message (connection failed), when i try a test connect. how can i get the multisync-20050414_connid.patch into my multisync installation.
i use a gentoo installation.
thanks in advanc for your help.
bo
January 19th, 2006 at 11:27 pm
Hi !
This is a very interesting thread… I’m willing to buy a new cellphone and K750i interest me (but is quite expensive, I’m also interested in K300i). Synch with my computer (running Linux) is very important for me.
So I wish to know if Christian had a solution for KOrganizer (and other KDE Pim elements, as I’m a KDE user). If not, can anyone confirm that he was able to synch the calendar and adressbook of the phone with evolution (with multisunc ?).
Thanks for answers ! (and sorry for my english ! :o)
January 25th, 2006 at 1:19 am
Finally I went for a simple k300i (300€ cheaper !), and it’s really like a 750i but “smaller” in every function: lesser memory (only 12Mo) lesser pixels (only 300000), etc…
But, I performed the synch of the kadressbook with the multisync packaged for my distro (Mandriva 2006)… Great stuff… I’m now trying to get the calendar in korganiser !
February 26th, 2006 at 11:44 am
I also have problems syncing my k750 with evolution using multisync. To Christian Zuckschwerdt: how did you apply the patch (for those of us that are not familiar with compiling)? You wouldn’t happen to have prebuilt binaries, would you?
Did anyone test with opensync?
February 26th, 2006 at 10:06 pm
Guys,
there is a way to connect to phone itself, not to its mass storage. Most of you are speaking about using OBEX and etc. These work smooth over the Bluetooth, but do not have Bluetooth at work, thought it’s ok bring one from home.
Has anyone experience with the problem: access phone book over the USB cable? So far I found one solution that uses module not found in Debian stock kernels I have (2.6.11). The module name is cp2101. Here is the only reference in bulgarian:
http://linux-bg.org/cgi-bin/y/index.pl?page=article&id=advices&key=380042499
March 15th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
That’s really useful, thanks nibble. I had no idea it was a cp2101. Fortunately I found http://www.microtron.org.uk/~craig/Projects/CP2101Driver/ which is in English and by the author of the cp2101 driver which is now in the stock 2.6 kernel. I’ll give it a go soon and report back.
March 17th, 2006 at 12:38 am
Guys,
I’m back with good news. With 2.6.15 when I plug my K750 there is message (check dmesg) that says something like this:
usb 2-1: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 3
cdc_acm 2-1:1.1: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
cdc_acm 2-1:1.3: ttyACM1: USB ACM device
scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 3
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
Vendor: Sony Eri Model: Memory Stick Rev: 0000
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 00
SCSI device sda: 126912 512-byte hdwr sectors (65 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 00 6a 00 00
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
SCSI device sda: 126912 512-byte hdwr sectors (65 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 00 6a 00 00
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
sda: sda1
sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sda
usb-storage: device scan complete
just ignore all that says sda or USB-STORAGE… see ttyACM0 and ttyACM1
USB drive cdc_acm does all the stuff for us. tell minicom to connect to /dev/ttyACM0 and that is… when I type ATI command it says:
Sony Ericsson K750
that’s all
Forget all about cp2101 and so on
March 17th, 2006 at 10:49 am
Great stuff nibble. I had to manually insert the cdc_acm module, but then am able to access the phone memory using cobex, and connect via minicom to issue AT commands. But I haven’t found the phonebook or calendar contents yet.
Looking for a reference for the AT commands, I found another useful page about using the k750i with Linux: http://stefans.datenbruch.de/k750i/
March 18th, 2006 at 10:33 pm
With kernel 2.6.15 (Ubuntu Dapper) multisync now also works when synchronising with Evolution. Only tested with bluetooth.
March 19th, 2006 at 8:28 pm
I have been able to transfer files(pictures, mp3s, etc) from my phone to my computer(SUSE 10) after a lot of trouble on one occasion, but now when I plug it in, my computer won’t even recognize it.
Last time I typed something like mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/cellphone in the console, but now SUSE says that special device mount point /dev/sdc1 doesn’t exist! Please help.
March 19th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
You’re probably using udev, which creates the /dev files dynamically as devices are connected. The problem with that is sometimes you’ll get a different filename in /dev depending on which other devices are connected, or what order you plugged things in.
Check the output in ‘dmesg’ or /var/log/messages when you plug the thing in. It should tell you which device to use in a message something like this:
Feb 19 13:10:22 fermi kernel: SCSI device sda: 498176 512-byte hdwr sectors (255 MB)So in that case it would be /dev/sda1, but yours may vary.
March 20th, 2006 at 8:42 am
Dmesg returns: ‘usb 3-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 9’, but nothing about /dev/whatever. On my phone, the phone status report says that the memory stick is unmounted, so it must be mounted by the computer, but where?
April 11th, 2006 at 7:31 pm
Please see the following dmesg output. I get a similar error, whether I plug the phone directly into the USB port, or try to mount my card reader with the Memory stick inserted. It just can’t identify the File system. I’ve tried manually setting the filesystem, using some of the suggestions on this thread, but no luck
usb 1-2: new full speed USB device using address 4
usb 1-2: Product: Sony Ericsson D750
usb 1-2: Manufacturer: Sony Ericsson
usb 1-2: SerialNumber: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX_X
scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Vendor: Sony Eri Model: Memory Stick Rev: 0000
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
SCSI device sde: 126912 512-byte hdwr sectors (65 MB)
sde: assuming Write Enabled
sde: assuming drive cache: write through
sde: sde1
Attached scsi removable disk sde at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Attached scsi generic sg4 at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0, type 0
USB Mass Storage device found at 4
cdc_acm 1-2:1.1: ttyACM0: USB ACM devicecdc_acm 1-2:1.3: ttyACM1: USB ACM devicedrivers/usb/core/usb.c: registered new driver cdc_acm
drivers/usb/class/cdc-acm.c: v0.23:USB Abstract Control Model driver for USB modems and ISDN adapters
FAT: bogus number-of-heads value
VFS: Can’t find a valid FAT filesystem on dev sde1.
VFS: Can’t find ext2 filesystem on dev sde1.
VFS: Can’t find a Minix or Minix V2 filesystem on device sde1.
subfs: unsuccessful attempt to mount media (256)
April 25th, 2006 at 5:12 pm
Juice,
in SuSE (10) is enough to modprobe the usb-storage module and then you can see your phone detected (dmesg).
It’s not very user-friendly, but works ;-). SuSE is at all not very well designed to cooperate with USB devices.
Best regards, Hofos
“Linux rules the world”
May 20th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
hi!
Kashms, how did you manage to get it work with multisync, which version do you use?
i use ubuntu dapper, it mounts the phone via the usb cable. i can also send them over bluetooth.
multisync does not function properly, i can make backups of the phone and from evolution, but when i try to sync the phone to evolution the data is send to the phone (i guess) but at the end no new contacts are created.
best regards, maniac.
May 20th, 2006 at 7:04 pm
I’m running Fedora Core 5 and trying to sync my k750i with Evolution using bluetooth..
I want to use the multisync application with the irmc plugin but i can’t get it to work.
The problem is that multisync don’t find the irmc plugin, i’ve found an article about this and currently the irmc plugin is not supported by the multisync gui.
How about to skip the gui for multisync and configure it manually?
Has anyone of you already done this?
Regards, Tomas
May 29th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
Hi,
I finally got my k750i syncing to evolution over a datacable with multisync.
I have put a quick overview/how to
here.
COuldn’t have done it without the other posts here!
Cheers.
June 3rd, 2006 at 9:14 pm
I also have got my k750i to syncing with multisync using bluetooth on Fedora Core 5..
You can read about how i did here: http://lagren.com/linux/fedora.php
June 13th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
The comments on this thread have all been really helpful!
I’m nearly there now, following Matt C’s guide (thanks Matt). I’ve now got successful sync *from* the k750i *to* the PC using Multisync’s Evolution or Backup plugins. But like ‘maniac’ above, I find the reverse is not happening; if I add a new contact, event or task in Evolution, then sync using Multisync, it doesn’t appear on the phone. I really want it working in both directions! I’ve tried both ttyACM0 and ttyACM1, and tried swapping the order in which the sync pair are specified in Multisync, but still only seem to get one-way traffic. Nothing unusual in dmesg. Ideas anyone?
June 21st, 2006 at 5:29 am
i can download pics and music from my phone to the com using the usb port, but when i put new music on my phone it will not let me open the files. has anyone had this prob and can anyone help. my phone is k750i
June 22nd, 2006 at 5:42 am
My only biff with this phone is that it doesn’t ask if you want to save a recording when you accidentally press the back button instead of the save button. It does that for text messages, ask if you want to save it to draft, but somehow it doesn’t do that for sound recording. And it sucks when you have used the phone to record an interview and lose it because you press the back button… 🙁
October 11th, 2006 at 6:36 am
I am trying to connect my K750i with my computer having Xp professional through USB. getting the message unknown device. Treid every thing no success. any body had solution
October 17th, 2006 at 9:16 am
I am connecting my K750i to my laptops USB port using datacable. My Laptop is running with Ubuntu 6.06. I’ve enabled GPRS on my handset. Now I want to connect to internet using my laptop via K750i. Can someone provide me with useful links or pointers, how to move forward . Any help will be highly appreciated.
October 23rd, 2006 at 10:45 am
i have proplem
November 3rd, 2006 at 10:23 pm
Vinu,
I think that if you have access to K750’s modem then all you have to do is set up internet connection using that modem. To be honest I never did this before, but I suggest looking PPP( or SLIP?).
Of course you must have GSM’s data profile that connects your GSM to ISP. This should be easy I think. Just call their support. For Bulgaria I suggest to dial *88 (M-Tel which is the biggest GSM provider).
Hope this helps.
November 14th, 2006 at 8:29 pm
Anybody use, the phone like a modem? To connect to GSM networks???
November 23rd, 2006 at 11:36 pm
Hello,
I am trying to connect GPRS in FC6.. once i got succeed then i will let you know
November 24th, 2006 at 8:42 pm
Hi
I am having problems with the phone on suse 10 running kde 3.4.2B.
I’m lost in Linux itself.
When I plug a usb mem stick in all’s ok and a konqueror window pops up. If I plug the phone in nothing happens. Looking through directories off root the phone appears in /dev/disk/by-id/ under its correct name and in the other directories of disk/. The USB memory stick doesn’t change the content of these directories at all. Any body know what I need to change to get the phone to work in the same fashion as the memory stick and where it is? dmesg shows it as a scsii device as mentioned above. dmesg shows the memory stick in much the same way.
Help!!!! It’s a nice phone
John
December 4th, 2006 at 9:56 pm
the modem works just fine! 🙂
I have used the GPRSEasyConnect to create the necessary pppoe files, and then edited a couple of things.
If I remember well:
1. you have to authorize the connection, I could do it only by setting /etc/ppp/pap-secrets
2. the phone uses it’s builtin internet connection setup to connect, not the one that you (or GPRSEasyConnect) gives to it, for this reason you
I think I commented (before it was uncommented) this line in ~/.gprsec/chat
#OK ‘AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”internet”‘
It can happen that I do not remember exactly the second step, but the main thing is that the phone uses its bultin setup, and you have to instruct it with the AT commands to use the setup #3 for example, if that is your gprs connection.
December 5th, 2006 at 9:56 pm
I got it working,
I am running ubuntu edgy.
1. Plug in the phone
2. run gnome-ppp
3. Username and password has to be set for your provider. I copied the values from GPRSEasyConnect
4. Telephone number: *99#
5. Under preferences: port: /dev/ttyACM0, type: USB modem, speed: 57600
At least it worked for me. GPRSEasyConnect did not work out of the box.
December 20th, 2006 at 9:12 am
sony ericsson K750i problem for any recording and any received for picture,tune and song from infarared or blue tooth show for memory full because 68 mb memory space free please help me for thanks
January 11th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Hi
I’m not a very tech aware person so forgive me if this is me being stupid or a bit garbled! I am trying to set up my mobile as a modem. With Sony Erricsons help line i have done so but when i connect this way the connection screen shows i am getting 115kbps but my IE7 won’t connect to google? I tried turning off my avast anti virus and firewall etc but to no avail, also it will not connect to messenger. I have contacted O2 after seeing an article on a forum saying i needed to have O2 set up my phone for both way data and fax. There doing that now but say it already seems to be set up??? any ideas??? also what sort of usage am i likely to rack up running messenger? i have got 1 mb inclusive and have paid for a monthly 4mb top up for a fiver! so 5mb whats that likely to afford me time wise ( irealise this is hard to guesstimate). I’m worried as its £3 per Mb after this and i don’t wanna run up a huge bill.
ps: (i am using a updated SE K750i with a usb cable running to my laptop which is running xp sp2)
February 6th, 2007 at 12:59 am
i’m newbie, im working at freebsd 5.4 a few day ago i try to connect my comp with sony ericsson k608i, this is a few step i already done :
1. apply the patch : cd /usr/src/sys/dev
patch