Hello All, I am having a major issue trying to configure a couple of serial ports.

I am running SuSE10 SP1 on an IBM Sure POS with 4 serial ports. This box will be running 3 serial peripherals, a scanner gun , a printer & cash drawer. I cannot get com3 & com4 to work ( ttyS2 & ttyS3 ).

If I plug my printer into ttyS0 and cat test.txt > /dev/ttyS0, I get the printer to work. This also works for /dev/ttyS1. Nothing happens when I try it on either ttyS2 or ttyS3. Now, I have the same hardware here running SuSE8 and I can hook the printer up to ttyS2 & ttyS3 and it prints. I am driving myself crazy trying to figure this out !!! Any thoughts? Using setserial doesn't help, matching the settings for the ttyS* from the SuSE8 box to the SuSE 10 box ( UART , port, irq settings) didnt do anything either.

Thanks in Advance!

here is setserial info

testbox:~ # setserial /dev/ttyS0
/dev/ttyS0, UART: 16550A, Port: 0x03f8, IRQ: 4
testbox:~ # setserial /dev/ttyS1
/dev/ttyS1, UART: 16550A, Port: 0x02f8, IRQ: 3
testbox:~ # setserial /dev/ttyS2
/dev/ttyS2, UART: 16550A, Port: 0x18c0, IRQ: 11
testbox:~ # setserial /dev/ttyS3
/dev/ttyS3, UART: 16550A, Port: 0x18b8, IRQ: 11
testbox:~ #


here is the contents of /proc/tty/driver/serial:
serinfo:1.0 driver revision:
0: uart:16550A port:000003F8 irq:4 tx:158 rx:0
1: uart:16550A port:000002F8 irq:3 tx:0 rx:0
2: uart:16550A port:000018C0 irq:11 tx:474 rx:0
3: uart:16550A port:000018B8 irq:11 tx:79 rx:0

I do not think com ports should have the same IRQ. Make sure they have their own IRQ.

Do you need the updates that SUSE 10 gives you? If not, use SUSE 8 instead.

Though it could be how SUSE 10 developers compile the kernel. They probably left out option for more than two com ports.

If it were me, I would screw SUSE and go with Gentoo.

A typical PC, COM 2,4 (ttyS1,ttyS3) share IRQ3 and COM 1,3 (ttyS0,ttyS2) share IRQ4.
It is reasonable that the com ports on the same PCI card would have the same IRQ.
There could be a conflict with other PCI devices. Check to see if your ethernet adapter is also IRQ11.

Thanks for the quick responses , Electro, unfortuniately I have to upgrade to SuSE10, switching over to Gentoo is not an option. As my father always told me, " You gotta dance with the girl you brought !"

I tried various irq changed with no success. I verified the settings for a SuSE8 box that works and using setserial changed the settings for ttyS2&3 to match the working box for uart, port & irq & still nothing. For testing / troubleshooting purposes, I am only using the printer connected.

I gotta be missing something obvious here!!

Thanks,
Steve

Check if the parity and baud rate is correct. Also verify the kernel options for SUSE 10 is the same as SUSE 8. If it is different, you may have to re-compile the kernel for SUSE 10. Though it does help to get a serial diagnose device to know if data is being sent to the printer.

SUSE may look pretty, but it is ugly inside.