Update: newer versions of the Verizon firmware use the generic usb_serial driver, and only seem to work with the latest 2.6.26 kernel series. Instead of the ttyACM device, it creates two ttyUSB devices. Just let BitPim find the phone device, and if that doesn't work try manually selecting the second of the two devices (I got a successful sync and some file transfers letting BitPim find it).
This documents a few things I discovered while trying to sync a new RAZR V3m with a Gentoo Linux box. There are several issues involved including kernel modules, phone model and carrier, firmware version, and device permissions, not to mention which application you try. I found two in Gentoo's portage tree - moto4lin, which I tried first (unsuccessfully), and bitpim, which I finally got to work once I ironed out the above issues. See below for the story in a nutshell, along with some pointers...
Step 1: if necessary, rebuild your kernel with the cdc_acm module enabled. It's a USB modem device driver, near the top of the menu under "USB Device Class drivers". Once built, the module will be loaded when you plug in the phone. Note: this driver seems to be required just to charge the phone's battery over USB, so even if you don't care about syncing the data, you should still enable this driver in the kernel so you can charge via a standard USB-mini cable.
Step 2: check your device permissions and modify accordingly, add your user ID to the appropriate group, etc. The above module creates the ttyACM0 modem device, and for Gentoo I added a udev rule similar to the existing rules for serial tty devices. Then I added myself to the UUCP group to acquire the correct permissions.
KERNEL=="ttyACM[0-9]*", NAME="%k", SYMLINK="usb/ACM/%n", GROUP="uucp", MODE="0660"
If the above changes were applied correctly, you should see the group in response to the "id" command, as well as the correct group permissions in the /dev directory after you plug in the phone:
# ls -l /dev/ttyACM0
crw-rw---- 1 root uucp 166, 0 Jun 10 13:52 /dev/ttyACM0
Step 3. Now you can try one of the above apps; if you're a KDE user, feel free to try moto4lin, otherwise for Gnome or another gtk+ environment, try bitpim instead. The online help is available here if you need info on other phones, etc.
As of ver. 1.0.0, the RAZR V3m isn't directly supported in the list of phones in bitpim, however, if your serial port is correctly configured, bitpim will detect it as a Motorola V3c. Go into the bitpim settings dialog and use the phone wizard to select Verizon -> Motorola -> V3c as the phone type, and then select /dev/ttyACM0 as the port. You can also check the read-only box for your initial testing (although you won't be able to save anything, you can read the available phone data). Once you're comfortable, uncheck the above and restart the application to save changes to your phone. See the bitpim docs for your phone model to learn the specific workarounds for modifying data (if any).
Note: the above tty device is not created with the latest Verizon firmware rev. 24.1_01.19.07. The device info returned by lsusb and other tools is different than the older firmware, and I still haven't been able to sync the new version with bitpim yet.
Last updated 10/12/2008 19:59