Transfer Files to and from Your Nokia Phone
Lately, mobile phones have evolved extremely fast, and whether you need them to access the Internet, record videos, send/receive MMS and SMS messages or e-mails, listen to music or radio stations, cellular phones are the most indispensable devices these days. But today’s guide will teach you a very easy way to connect and transfer files to/from your mobile phone using an USB cable through the Pop-Port interface. Many Nokia phones come with this Pop-Port and I just happen to be the proud owner of such a mobile device (Nokia N70).
The problem with the phones that use the Pop-Port is that when you connect the USB cable to your Linux PC, nothing happens. I bet you are (like me) probably used to see an “Open with…” window a few seconds after you connect some multimedia device (camera, phone, hard drive, ipod) in the USB port, but this will not happen with these phones. Don’t panic, I have the solution! You just have to follow the next steps:
NOTE: The following guide was tested with a Nokia N70 phone and Ubuntu 7.04.
Step 1 – Install required software
Fire up Synaptic Package Manager (System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager) and search for obex.
Mark for installation the following packages:
- obexftp
- openobex-apps
Some other packages, that depend on these ones, will also be installed, so click “Mark” when you’ll be asked if you want to install those too. Now click the “Apply” button to install all the required packages. When the installation is over, close Synaptic.
All the above software consists of console-based tools, so we need to install a nice GUI (graphical user interface) for the obexftp package. The ObexFTP Front-end software happens to be a very nice and easy to use obexftp GUI, which requires no installation. Download it from here, use the “Binary mirror 1 (zip) (1.7 MB)” package and extract it in your home directory.
Step 2 – Advanced Configurations
It is time to connect your phone to the PC using the USB cable. Open a terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) and type:
lsusb
which should output some lines with USB devices connected to your PC. I’ve easily spotted my Nokia phone:
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 0421:043a Nokia Mobile Phones
This line shows the VendorID and ProductID of the phone, for my Nokia N70:
VendorID = 0421
ProductID = 043a
Now copy/paste the following line in the Terminal:
sudo gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/040-permissions.rules
and add the next line to the end of the text file:
BUS==”usb”, SYSFS{idVendor}==”VendorID”, SYSFS{idProduct}==”ProductID”, GROUP=”plugdev”, USER=”yourUserNname”
Replace VendorID and ProductID with the numbers from the lsusb result and yourUserNname with your username.
Example:
BUS==”usb”, SYSFS{idVendor}==”0421″, SYSFS{idProduct}==”043a”, GROUP=”plugdev”, USER=”marius”
Save the file and close it. This little trick will give you rights to access and use the USB port where the mobile device is connected.
Step 3 – Final adjustments
Right click on your desktop and select the ‘Create Launcher…’ option.
In the ‘Create Launcher’ window select a nice icon, fill up the Name field with the desired name for the launcher, and on the Command field type:
java -jar /home/YOURUSERNAME/obexftp-frontend-0.6.1-bin/OBEXFTPFrontend.jar
Replace YOURUSERNAME with your username.
All you have to do now is to double click the launcher you’ve just created and the ObexFTP Front-end will pop-up asking you to configure it. Follow the next steps:
1. Enter /usr/bin/obexftp in the ObexFTP path field.
2. Select USB on the Transport option and set the Value filed to 1.
To close the configuration window, Click OK when you’re done, and then click the first icon on the main window. The C: drive and the memory card of the phone will be listed and you can transfer files to and from your phone. Watch the next video for a quick demonstration where I’m going to upload a wallpaper to my phone’s drive:
Tags: device_camera, Internet, Linux, linux_pc, listen_to_music, manager_system, Mobile, multimedia_device, nokia_n70, nokia_phones, package_manager, port_interface, sms_messages, synaptic, usb_cable
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MS Windows Vista Compatible Software on 22 Aug 2007 at 8:30 pm #
window a few seconds after you connect some multimedia device (camera, phone, hard drive, ipod) in the USB port, but this will not happen with these phones. Don’t panic, I have the solution! You just have to follow the next steps:(more…)device camera, internet record, Linux, linux pc, listen to music, manager system, Mobile, multimedia device, nokia n70, nokia phones, package manager, port interface, sms messages, synaptic, usb cable
links for 2007-08-23 on 23 Aug 2007 at 9:39 am #
[...] Transfer Files to and from Your Nokia Phone [...]
Jason Brower on 21 Feb 2008 at 12:14 pm #
You mentioned a JAR file. But I can’t find where you have a link to it. Did I miss it? email directly please. encompass
Jason Brower on 21 Feb 2008 at 12:16 pm #
Oops… you know, I never find anything without complaining first.
chemist on 28 Feb 2008 at 7:25 am #
When i double click on the louncher nothing happens…any guess?
Siddhu on 13 Sep 2008 at 7:57 pm #
Errata:
Hi, thanks for your awesome guide; just found a couple of errors.
1. The udev file to which the rules should be added is called:
/etc/udev/rules.d/40-permissions.rules
and not
Siddhu on 13 Sep 2008 at 8:00 pm #
Sorry, I accidentally clicked ’submit’ – stupid touchpad.
To continue,
——–
and not:
/etc/udev/rules.d/040-permissions.rules
The line to be entered is also slightly wrong. It should be:
BUS==”usb”, SYSFS{idVendor}==”VendorID”, SYSFS{idProduct}==”ProductID”, GROUP=”plugdev”, USER=”yourUserName”
i.e. ” ” and not “ ” as shown in the article.
P.S.: If you can’t get ur graphical frontend working, try installing java. But before that if you want to just check on the command line if obexftp is working, type:
siddhu@fauxMac:~$ obex_test -u
Using USB transport, querying available interfaces
Interface 0: Nokia Nokia N70 SYNCML-SYNC
Interface 1: Nokia Nokia N70 PC Suite Services
NOTE: THIS MIGHT BE BECAUSE OF CHANGES FROM FEISTY FAWN (ON WHICH THIS GUIDE IS BASED), AND HARDY HERON (8.04; the latest version; that I use!
)
Hope this helps.
Hrishikesh on 06 May 2009 at 6:29 pm #
error I got is following.
—
The following command has failed : Listing files under the / folder.
Try again?
[Yes]/[No]
–
Tring again doesn’t help. Any suggestion?