(my first post on lemmy so I hope I'm doing this right)
Distro: Spiral Linux (Debian, KDE spin), by recommendation
System: Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 2 (Intel) (distro recommended as I am looking for Debian(-based), + btrfs, snapshots, and fde, included via the gui installer)
I'm having issues getting ModemManager to unlock my X55 modem. This morning I wiped my drive to install Spiral (KDE), coming from Kubuntu 24.04. While the modem worked after running the proper fcc unlock script in Kubuntu, it is entirely missing in my Spiral install. While I assumed that it would not be that simple, I copied /etc/ModemManager from my Kubuntu live environment to Spiral, ran
sudo ln -sft /etc/ModemManager/fcc-unlock.d /usr/share/ModemManager/fcc-unlock.available.d/105b:e0ab
and restarted, but alas that's not enough, so I'm stuck. I have added the network profile + apn to ModemManager (the UI) but of course without the modem unlocked, I can't connect. I'm new to cellular modems in Linux (this was a windows machine until ~6 weeks ago) but I'm otherwise comfortable with the terminal and commands. The modem was working as expected last night in Kubuntu.
I haven't got the system setup yet (trying this first before going further) so if I botch this, an install is no problem. I'm assuming it's either (or both?) a service, or a missing package that sets up what's needed, but I'm at a loss as to how to proceed.
I discussed this here https://lemmy.world/comment/10540509 this morning, though I think I got all the important details typed up above. But maybe it could be useful somehow.
Any suggestions are welcomed :)
Rant, but not at you.
Well I would use Debian, but the last two systems I tried to install it on hung at some point in the install process. I tried multiple times, multiple downloads, multiple versions (across multiple months!), and these are two separate machines from two different vendors.
Debian is fine on my server boxes, but fuck me it's dogshit in a consumer environment. One of those laptops has - and is an absolute necessity to have working - WWAN. I tried over a dozen distros, from 'easy and popular' to 'obscure and edge-case'. Ubuntu (actually Kubuntu, I like KDE) was literally the only distro to 1) boot, 2) install, and 3) have working WWAN (after fucking with the fcc-unlock shit and filling my carrier details). Nothing, literally nothing else could do this simple task.
Linux is great, they say. It's easy. It's simple to install and use. It puts you in control. These are ideas that the Linux community wants to believe, that I want to believe, but it's just not. Given the right circumstances, with the right hardware, and the right use-case, it's good. Stray anywhere off the beaten path and unless you're a veteran *nix sysadmin who values their time as $0, sometimes you're just fucked. I would know, I've been using various distros on and off for 20 years. It's still bad. I don't understand how, but here we are.
I don't like Ubuntu for a few reasons, but in my experience, the situation sucks the least when you use it. Sometimes - see above WWAN bullshit - it's the only thing that works.
And that's fucking bullshit, but it's a fact. And even interested users, who like to tinker, have a limit to what they will put up with before throwing in the towel and using what works.