On Wed, Sep 20, 2023 at 2:51 AM <dvalin@???> wrote:
>
> 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 <dvalin@???> 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 1.4.2 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.
>

Because I've just come out of what you're going into I have been doing some
looking:
https://rfshop.com.au/product-category/antennas/
they purport to have exterior antennas for your device. Personally I would
prefer to stick it up on a pole right close to the house (imo houses were not
made to be antenna mounting locations!!). A m3 of concrete with a tilt-up
mast, 6 m should be easily doable (find a local welder type or a real handy
farmer if that isn't part of your skill set) and that should really
help with the
reception. Looking for equipment it seems that a lot of isps using such
equipment have data caps - - - I do hope you don't!!! Here I ran my own router.
Dunno about there - - - here I am looking to move to something like OPNsense
or PfSense to better security for my connection.

HTH