How to get BitPim to detect your cellphone in Ubuntu Linux

I have always used bitpim in windows, because for some reason I could never get it to detect my phone in Ubuntu Linux, the program would run fine, it would just ‘fail’ to detect the phone. I recently found a way to get bitpim to detect my phone (a Verizon Wireless LG VX8350 ) in Ubuntu.

What you need:

• Ubuntu
• Your cellphone
• A usb cable that connects your cellphone to a computer.
• double check that your phone is supported, check this site, under the dropdown ‘phones’ for more info: http://www.bitpim.org/help/

First off, install bitpim. It is in the ubuntu repos, but the version was so old (version 1.02 vs 1.06) that it didn’t even have my phone model. So i went to:

http://www.bitpim.org/#download

and downloaded the Linux DEB. Simply double click it to bring up GDebi, which will install the dependencies and then install bitpim.

The bad thing about the BitPim deb is that it doesn’t create an icon for our menu. However, the command is simply bitpim, so we can create a menu entry.

First off, download the BitPim Icon here:

the BitPim Icon

and save it to your desktop. Then, open up the terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal ) and then type

cd ~/Desktop

sudo cp bitpim.png /usr/share/pixmaps/

and enter your password.

This will copy the picture file into a folder that is used mostly for icons.

Now, go to System > Preferences > Main Menu. Click on “Accessories” and then on the right, click on the button that says “New Item”

In the box that pops up, put “BitPim” under Name, put “bitpim” for the Command, and under description, i just put “A program that interfaces with your cellphone.” Now for the picture, click on the spring icon, and it will open up a file chooser dialog. If its not already there, type

/usr/share/pixmaps/

in teh address bar above the icons and press enter. Then scroll down until you find ‘bitpim.png’ and select it, and double click it to select it.

Now it should take you back to the launcher creation dialog, just press “OK” and the menu entry will be created. You can click “close” to close the main menu dialog.

Now, we need to install a program to make it so Ubuntu detects and sets correct permissions to your cellphone when you plug it in.

Download this file to your desktop:

http://www.2shared.com/file/3855553/ebd8bf81/MoPOL_0_0_2tar.html

When it is finished downloading, right click the file, and select “extract here”.

now, if you closed the terminal, time to open it back up again (Applicatons > accessories > terminal). Type:

cd ~/Desktop

cd Mobile-Phones-on-Linux

chmod +x setup.sh

./setup.sh

Now, it will ask you some questions in the terminal before it installs. after entering your sudo password, it will ask you what kind of installation to do. you need to type in “1″ and hit enter, just so it installs hotplugging for your cellphone, as we already have the latest version of BitPim installed.

Then, after that, it will ask you what kind of phone do you have. I have a LG phone so i selected “1″ for LG. select the correct brand of your phone, type in the number and hit enter. If your brand is not listed, then just type in “5″ for OEM USB and hit enter, and it will install the files.

It prompts you to restart your computer before the changes can take effect, so we will do that now.

After your computer has restarted, now your phone should be detected. Plug in your phone, and start BitPim. (Using the menu entry we just created, Applications > Accessories > Bitpim ) Once it has started up,  click the Icon of the silver cellphone on the right hand side with the magnifing glass to start the detection process. If all goes well, it should detect your cellphone and ask you to name it. if it does, then congratulatons! everything worked. If it didn’t work, you might want to check the helpfile or the bitpim wiki (http://www.bitpim.org/help/) for help and to see if your phone is supported

I hope this helps!