Some people do all the work so we don’t have to. Having received his 3G USB modem, Dale Lane was determined to use it on his EeePC. But the baby computer operates with Linux, and the dongle is only compatible with Mac and Windows OS - meaning that it simply won’t recognise the dongle as a hardware device when you plug it in.

Undeterred by forum naysayers, Dale looked at the dongle on his Windows ThinkPad and discovered that the Huawei E169 is a ‘composite device’ - both a flash memory disk and a modem - which the EeePC can’t handle. But having sniffed out Josua Dietze’s existing Linux USB_modeswitch utility, Dale inputted the codes for the Huawei E169 device, allowing him to disable the memory storage mode and enable the modem.

In short, The Man Did It (respect) and it’s all working like a dream. Apparently, E220 or newer dongles don’t have this problem; but if you’ve got an E169, read his clearly explained guide with full screenshots to get mobile broadband on your EeePC, easy.