Connecting my w385 to Ubuntu Linux

So I have a trusty old Motorola w385, which has a USB-mini port on it, so I can connect it to my computer. Trouble is getting it to actually do anything. I did it a long time ago, to back up my text messages, and remembered having a lot of trouble to do so. But I went to try it again, with my computer set up, and still had trouble, unless I came across the dead-simple method in this thread - grabbing the ids from lsusb, and plugging them into modprobe usbserial. That set up the /dev/ttyUSB0, which allowed me to use KMobileTools to backup my texts. This is mostly for my reference, but if it manages to help someone else (I'm lazy halfway through a beer, so that's unlikely), good for you.