Oh, I do hope the stupid web mail client doesn't stuff up the quoting
with
mad wrapping.

On 19.09.23 11:31, Joril wrote:
> I'd suggest going the "mobile wi-fi hotspot" ("MiFi") instead, if
possible.
> So you'd just have to connect to the hotspot via wi-fi, no dongles
or
> drivers involved :)

Simple is awfully tempting, but going for a WLAN with only unknown (or
no)
firewall in the hotspot box sounds scary. Arnt's revelation that
they're
usually cut down underperformers further rules them out, I figure.

On 19.09.23 12:45, dng@??? wrote:
> Depending on the part of the world where you live and any further
> requirements you also can consider a Fritz!Box 6850 LTE from AVM
(German)
>
> https://en.avm.de/products/fritzbox/fritzbox-6850-lte/
 
The land of Oz is a long way from there. I'd be more confident that a
product
on the local market would work. Complete lack of experience with
mobile internet
is probably good cause for caution.

On 19.09.23 21:32, onefang wrote:
> The originsal poster has an Internode email address, and mentioned
NBN,
> so that means they are from Australia.
 
Bingo!
 
> Typically NBN devices provide Ethernet, not heard of this USB
dongle, but
> I suspect it'll be presented to your computer as an Ethernet port.
 
A grub around on the intertubes does seem to confirm. The "USB dongle"
looks
like a USB flash drive, but is a radio transceiver and I/F gubbins in
virtually
no space at all. (My brother used one on MSW, to link to the mobile
tower about
1.5 km away on the next hill.)

I've found indications that if "dmesg |grep wwan" has a hit, then the
device
has been found, and with a little luck, an appropriate kernel module
ought to
be loaded. And if not, then "dmesg | grep firmware -i" might provide a
clue to
issues. It's a start - enough to motivate donning gumboots and wading
in.
 
It could be quite educational to just buy a $40 dongle, and see what
happens.
(One from my telco sounds safest, even though they won't talk to me
once they
discover I'm running Linux.)

On 19.09.23 05:54, o1bigtenor wrote:
> - - - well - - - I'll be blunt - - - I hope you have almost no trees
between
> you and the area antenna.

Yup - a bit spoilt there; the preferred telco's tower is 1.5 km line
of sight,
with only a thin treetop or two in between. On our land, they could
suffer
"tree evaporation a la chainsaw" if they give trouble. The other
telco's tower
as about 2 km away, on the other side of 2 km² of my forest, so much
more iffy.

On 19.09.23 20:39, Arnt Karlsen wrote:
> > On Tue, Sep 19, 2023 at 3:50 AM wrote:
> > I'll download the latest Devuan, and install it on an old but good

> > Lenovo laptop, as I'm several releases behind - not a good
starting
> > point, I figure.
>
> ..search for newbie friendly router gateway single use box distros,
> I used ipcop-0.1.1 thru 14.2 when it was active.

My naive plan A is now to simply imitate what's done with MSW; stick
the dongle
into the USB socket of my laptop or NUC, and rely on the local
firewall. (If
that just works.) Admittedly, that's a bit more exposed than the
current
situation behind the wired broadband modem with its firewall, but that
will vanish.

> ..if are past the newbie stage, install and read freedombox-doc-en,
> then search for freedombox style router gateway etc single use box
> distros, depending on your use cases.

A quarter of a century of Linux, following years of Solaris & HPUX
sysadmin,
but I've been 69 times around the sun, and new stuff takes a bit
longer to get
in against the backpressure of all the cruft already in wet RAM. (It
doesn't
help that I'm up to my armpits renovating for sale, and moving an
excess of
house and workshop stuff. But a tree change without internet does not
a happy
camper make, so I'd better get something working before the move.)

Many thanks for all the hints. I can sneak up on this one with a
little more
clarity now.