[cavuca727]

Does anyone tried to connect with Linux ? Because when you connect using USB, you have no MEDIA, just the OS and setup.

So I connected using Wi-Fi Sharing and it works !

[brendonlee]

This is kind of interesting..did you see whats in those folders?

[Omega_PB]

I was unable to get it to mount at all under linux over the USB cable. It did not show up as a USB MassStorage device.

Can you explain how you accessed it?

Wifi sharing worked like a charm, but file transfer was a little slow. I'd love to try it with USB.

[mythdraug]

I've not attempted to mount the playbook under linux. But the following observations from the windows side may help.

Before the drivers are installed, I believe the playbook presents itself as a USBcdrom. With that mount, the drivers can be installed.

After installing the drivers, the playbook will be available as a network resource through USB. The playbook will pick a different 4 address network each connection and serve as a DHCP server to the host computer. The same shares you see over wifi will be available here.

Good luck!

[Omega_PB]

I've not attempted to mount the playbook under linux. But the following observations from the windows side may help.

Before the drivers are installed, I believe the playbook presents itself as a USBcdrom. With that mount, the drivers can be installed.

After installing the drivers, the playbook will be available as a network resource through USB. The playbook will pick a different 4 address network each connection and serve as a DHCP server to the host computer. The same shares you see over wifi will be available here.

Good luck!

CDROM eh? Thats wild. I'll give it a try again.
I dont have any windows machines, so no drivers of any type have been installed.

[anon(4018671)]

I can mount my Pb in Linux Mint 10.10 using usb.
I don't know how you have your system configured, I have samba4 and avahi installed and i think that may let you connect to server (goto any nautilus screen under File select Windows Share from Service Type select connect and enter username and password (I have both on the playbook not sure about a guest but probably blank if at all)

The strange thing is I run mint in VMWare but Pb won't mount unless i dissconnect from the intermnet. Look at the connections in the networking icon. I have the internet wired connection and a new wired connection Reasearch in Motion device. make sure that is active and not the internet.

...works for me. I just can't get amarok to browse samba but i can import music into rhythmbox. Playlists need tobe striped of "%20" (by opening the text editor under search, use replace %20 then add the space in the next box) in the filenames but other than that that's what i've got...

[anon(4018671)]

well i guess you can reconnect to the internet after Pb is mounted...

[semicoln]

This is pretty wack. Why couldn't it just be a USB mass storage device? I guess its still better than accessing an iPad.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[anon(4018671)]

Well scratch that... after the last update it isn't working 6.2390.

[kbz1960]

Humm somebody will probably figure it out again. But really sounds like you need to just get an ipad or a droid. Actually they should work better with linux since they all are based on unix/linux anyway.

I do agree RIM should provide apple and linux with the same functionality as they do for windows.

[cas118]

Actually they should work better with linux since they all are based on unix/linux anyway

Just like QNX is, you mean?

In fairness, if you're buying this expecting Linux support then you only have yourself to blame. I can happily mount the PB over wifi and knew that would be the case before I bought it. As soon as reviews started talking about needing to install drivers for USB access, I figured that Linux was out of the question.

The reason that you can't just mount the file system is for security. You can password protect a network share, which is what the shared area works as on the PlayBook when connecting via USB. This just isn't possible with regular drive mounts.

Don't be surprised if this is how it will behave on future phones as well.

It would be nice for RIM to spread some Linux love - even if it's just basic drivers and some command line tools to get us started. Anyone know where I can send a feature request?

[anon(5342392)]

I know this thread is a couple months old but I'd just like to point out an observation I made.

I was also trying to connect my Playbook to transfer files only to notice it is recognised as a network device not a mass storage device in Linux (same as Windows).

I proceeded to connect via Samba Connection over WiFi whilst the USB was connected.

I was transferring a file around 1GB, and about 100MB's later I figured I'd disconnect the USB cable to then be given an error message that the file failed to transfer.

I think that even though I connect to the Playbook using its WiFi IP Address it took (what I call) the path of least resistance and was actually transferring over the USB cable.

Again this is an observation and could've been a fluke but I do think that the device does in fact transfer over USB even though it isn't obvious.

Give it a try Linux users with Playbooks and tell me if you experience the same.

Hope this helps out others.

[DallaValley]

Again this is an observation and could've been a fluke but I do think that the device does in fact transfer over USB even though it isn't obvious.

I notice also that this thread is mostly a couple months old but I can add some confirmation through a previous Windows Vista experience.

I have had and still have problems getting BDM to recognise my Playbook (on two different Sony laptops running Vista), even second tier Blackberry support in Canada are baffled after spending many hours trying to resolve.

Anyway, as the Playbook is recognised as a network device, the only way I can access and transfer to/from Playbook in Vista - is by plugging in USB and connecting via LAN dynamic IP address directly. Access is only possible when plugged in therefore transfer is definitely via USB.

This is not a fluke, and should definitely work in the same way under Ubuntu!

[grahamf]

Humm somebody will probably figure it out again. But really sounds like you need to just get an ipad or a droid. Actually they should work better with linux since they all are based on unix/linux anyway.

I do agree RIM should provide apple and linux with the same functionality as they do for windows.

Actually, the iPad, iPhone, and ipod touch ALL connect the same ways as the PlayBook (at least over USB- last I checked WiFi connectivity is still not available on the iStuff).

It's just that you need iTunes anyways so it's transparent to the user.

[anon(4018671)]

Using Ubuntu 10.10 seems to work ok now.

I've added an attachment to show the network connections I am able to have. I still had to restart the PB again for it to be recognized but seemed stable afterward, sometimes I don't need to???

192.168.1.103 = WIFI connection
169.254.58.157 = USB connection
169.254.58.158 = Print$
Able to surf the web at the same time too

Connect to both WIFI and USB under Places >> Connect To Server.
I use a username and password. I can transfer with both. Rhythmbox and Banshee can access the mounts. They could before but had trouble with Amarok.

Right now Print$ is inaccessible.

So I'm glad things have been sorted out it was frustrating at release the back and forth working/not working blah blah. Print$ folder might function once the PIM is out who knows.

Still with the music... In Banshee I have music loaded from the PB. I can create a playlist, export it to PB then strip out the %20 save and it updates right on the PB! Now that's slick.

[ronnie_sk]

To connect playbook to ubuntu you have to:

1) Connect playbook and ubuntu with USB cable

2) On playbook:

In "Config -> Storage & Sharing -> USB Connections" set value to "Connection to Windows" (default is "Automatically Detect")

3) On ubuntu:

Right after changing this value, new network device will appear. The name will be more likely "usb0" (could be usb1, 2, .. this is system specific). You can check it by executing "sudo ifconfig" from the command line.

Your Network manager will also detect new connection. You should see popup indicator. In right top corner.

4) On playbook:

In "Config -> About" change "View information about your tablet" to "Network". You should see IP address of Playbook's USB interface to connect to.

5) On ubuntu:

Now, use your favourite method to mount device (you might more likely need smbfs and smbclient utilities installed). To finally mount your playbook, use either command-line's

smbmount //<USB_IP>/media <local_mount_point>
i.e.
smbmount //169.254.82.185/media /mnt/usb

or

mount -t cifs //<USB_IP>/media <local_mount_point>
i.e.
mount -t cifs //169.254.82.185/media /mnt/usb

or from your Gnome environment follow:

Places -> Connect to server ...
Service type: Windows share
Server: <USB_IP>

Enjoy!

[dkingsf]

I'd love it if somebody just rooted this device and created a Linux installation that would use all hardware.

[jkramer]

I've written a short tutorial on how to mount the PB automatically. Have fun!

BlackBerry PlayBook + Linux

[grahamf]

I'd love it if somebody just rooted this device and created a Linux installation that would use all hardware.

Well I won't hod my breath. not even TabletOS uses all the hardware, let alone a third party OS that might not have all of the drivers' source code.

[nicklas79]

Hi,

When the playbook is set in "auto" or "windows" mode, it annouces to your computer as a SCSI device to install the driver.

Beside of, on the PlayBook screen, you can read the process.

In "mac" mode, it annouces as an USB network device.

In fact the windows driver permits only to switch between scsi to usb service.

I have written a Linux tool call by udev, to switch automatically.

When the playbook provides a network interface, your linux computer has to have USBNET kernel support. You get a new network interface (ifconfig usb0)

If not yet, your computer can do a dhcp request.

When your pc gets an address you can access to data with a samba client.

Nicolas

[rs422a]

Works great on Mint 10. I had to install dhcpcd first but after that everything worked great. Haven't found a way to flush the usb cache on disconnect, so I always manually unmount - but no biggie as I do that anyway. The throughput is incredibly fast now both ways. I wish I had terminal for the PB because I bet you could hack the dhcp table in QNX to auto-mount the usb to anything.

[pathole]

Maybe it's cause I'm on 10.04 ubuntu. I get the usb ip when I connect the playbook. But I get a connection refused when I try mount or connect to server through the places menu.

Can someone confirm that this still works for them using the latest playbook updates? I wanted to rule out that chance before I started trying other possibilities.

[tstrike34]

Here its pretty simple to connect the PB to Linux without Samba.

1. Connect your PB. If you get a rejection notice about the filesystem not mounted click ok.

2. Open a terminal and type

$ sudo dmesg

3. In the output of the dmesg you should see something like:

sdb1, sdb2

4. Once you figure out the device drive designation (sd*) create mountpoint:

$ sudo mkdir -p /mnt/pb

5. Mount your PB:

$sudo mount /dev/sd* /mnt/pb

Thats all it takes.

[mithrazor]

Nope when I type in dmesg

I get a huge list of things. I see playbook on there. But not by sdb1 or something. It looks like this:


[ 4886.631815] scsi 6:0:0:0: CD-ROM RIM PlayBook CD 1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2

But these instructions worked for me:
http://gnuman.com/?p=53

[genesimmons]

Actually, the iPad, iPhone, and ipod touch ALL connect the same ways as the PlayBook (at least over USB- last I checked WiFi connectivity is still not available on the iStuff).

It's just that you need iTunes anyways so it's transparent to the user.

this isnt true at all,i run ubuntu 11,04 and rythmbox and i have 2 ipod touchs 1 jailbroke and 1 not and my gf android phone.i can sync all of them and transfer music,its not as fast as itunes but it works,all the devices show up as a usb device