how to use serial port like hyper terminal in windos?

daceo · 03-16-2007, 02:01 PM

Hi,

I am an electronic engineer, and I work on embedded uControlers with RS232 ports which can talk to the Hyperterminal or similar in windos through com1-4...

how do I do this in linux. I feel it probably is so basic that everyone knows it and hance documentation is not forthcomming. (have been wondering this for several years)

could any body help me with a magic command line, and how to set up baud etc, or a pointer to a good how to...

cheers

daceo

suse 9.1
slack 9.x 10.x
ubuntu 6.x
win 98 se 2000 XP

if it helps

acid_kewpie · 03-16-2007, 02:06 PM

check out minicom, pretty nice tool for the job. btw, i use TuTTY, a puTTY fork for this under windows, whops hyperterminal by a long way.

macemoneta · 03-16-2007, 02:08 PM

The tool is minicom, it's included with many distributions. As root,

minicom -s

This lets you setup system-wide defaults (like port selection and bit rate).

Then as a user just run minicom to connect to the port.

MS3FGX · 03-16-2007, 02:09 PM

You would want to look at "minicom" which is a console-based serial terminal emulator which should be able to do anything Hyperterminal was doing.

If you want something with a GUI those are out there too, like CuteCom.

theNbomr · 03-16-2007, 02:09 PM

Most distros com with minicom, which I find a bit spartan, although functional. My weapon of choice, for greatest control and flexibility is C-kermit. That you even understand the utility of serial communcations automatically puts you in an enlightened category IMHO, so no need to feel shame.
--- rod.

Linville79 · 03-16-2007, 03:29 PM

I also prefer C-Kermit for serial port communication in Linux.

daceo · 03-16-2007, 06:18 PM

Thanks guys,

For some strange reason I thought I could type ttyS0 ore something like that in to a "terminal" and it would start working all by itself.... so it is kind of reassuring that i need a program to run. next task is to see if any of the single floppy distros have any of these as standard....

cheers

daceo

macemoneta · 03-16-2007, 06:40 PM

While the single boot floppy versions of Linux ("Serial Terminal Linux" was for just this purpose) that had minicom seem to have disappeared, you can still get Feather Linux - a bootable image for CD or USB thumb drive.

However, if you're able to boot a CD, you might as well just get a recent distribution's LiveCD with minicom.

dxqcanada · 03-16-2007, 06:45 PM

If you want a GUI app ... look into cutecom