PC-COM Multiport Serial card
 

Hi all,

i'm trying to get this PC-COM Multiport(2 ports) serial card to work under FedoraCore 2 on a Compaq machine.


When i put the card in the PCI slot and restarted the machine, Kudzu came up with an option to configure the device...but that was that, when i said configure nothing happned and the start up continued as normal.

According to the online techsupport of the dealer, it is supposed to be a small change to the rc.serial file. Heres the link

The /etc/rc.d/rc.serial file was missing, so i created one which goes like this...
And called the script through rc.local with the following code..

I did this and changed the runlevel (init 3)...the startup hung at *anacron*..so deleted the call from rc.local and the file rc.serial

I thought the multiport support was not built into the kernel, so i recompiled with all the options for multiport.

According to what i know, from a long time, linux can support upto 4 ports without any issues (/dev/ttyS0.....ttyS3) ie.. no mucking around with *setserial* and more over this is just a dumb serial card.

It wasnt meant to be so simple at all....

When i tried setting up the ports with setserial, the right IRQs and the address it didt seem to give me any error. I even checked it with and it showed all the four ports. The problem is, i can get data transfer in only ttyS0 and ttyS1, and not the newly configured ttyS2 and ttyS3.

This is the situation as of now.....dont know how else to sort it out

Any help will be greatly appreciated

Cheers

king_nothingzzz

----EDIT----

PS: I dont have physical access to the machine, sorry i cant get much info from dmesg, /bin/lspci etc...
It is a job i'm doing for another company....
Thanks

I am far from an expert but I do use an 8 port serial card to connect VT terminals to a Debian box.
What do your serial lines connect to or what is their purpose? Is the card PCI or ISA?

HI,

The serial device connects to some sort of a laser plotting device...just used to collect statistical data for analysis later

And its a PCI card...

Still looking around for answers :(

Thanks though

Cheers

king_nothingzzz

Your original post seems to focus on setup features in the operating system - does there need to be some setup in the plotting program?
I found this documentation.
Sorry if I am rehashing what you have already tried.

Thanks for the reply...i appreciate your help

I checked the info, and it has nothing to do with any of them.

I dont know much about the machine which is sending the info, infact i have never seen it.

what they do with the data, or where it comes from doesnt concern me.

When i try i can see the input coming in.

All i am interested in doing is to get ttyS2 and ttyS3 to work the same way.

It is just two RS-232 cables coming into the first two ports, so technically speaking, if everything
is working fine, i should be able to cat into ttyS2 and ttyS3 and see the input.

So i am thinking it is more of a configuration issue.

And hey, any day two minds are better than one, so no issues with rehashing. If you can kindly go through my original post and tell me if i have done anything wrong, or if there is any other way of installing a new serial card, it would be really helpfull.

Cheers

king_nothingzzz

Do you know for sure the PCI card wants to use ttyS2 & 3 rather than ttyS4 & 5?

What makes you say so...

I have just assumed that ttyS2 and ttyS3 was the case...

well, for one, when i tried *setserial -bg /dev/ttyS?* it only returned me correct values for ttyS0-3.

Check the docs on the card. You may need to create devices with mknod (easy).
It is usual for ttyS0-3 to already be set up by default so the PCI card may start at the next available.
When I installed my 8 port card I had to create all the devices.
There may also be some way to tell the card which port to start at. Either jumpers or a utility program.

Yeah i did that...

The docs only have instructions till 2.4, but this ones a 2.5.

The docs for 2.2-2.4 suggest replacing serial.c and serial.h files and recompiling the kernel with serial support enabled, and to create /dev/ttyS44 and /dev/ttyS45 using MKNOD. I didnt go ahead with these instructions as it was a different kernel. More over the website only suggests that the "vector address" be changed in the * /etc/rc.d/rc.serial * and they say it will be installed as a dumb card and no extra configuration is necessary.

I was a little skeptical for these reasons...

You recon i should try what the manual sugests??

Well, i'm thinking of escalating the job to someone more capable of handling Linux Hardware, i can handle situations regarding software and networking, but when it comes to hardware, i'm a total newbie. Had a bit of much around with touchpad drivers, mouse drivers before, and thats about it......

Cheers

king_nothingzzz

The thing is, the newer the kernel, the more likely none of the extra configuration is necessary.
There is already some sort of serial support if you already have working devices.
The newer the PCI card the more likely it is ready to go (or easily configured) out of the box.
Here is
a link to a general mknod command for serial devices.
You would probably use:
mknod -m 660 /dev/ttyS4 c 4 68
mknod -m 660 /dev/ttyS5 c 4 69

You can confirm with an "ls-la" on your /dev/ttyS0-3 devices. You should see an increment from 64-67.
See also "man mknod" if needed.

I was of the same impression, thats the reason i refrained from mucking around with serial.c and serial.h.

One more question, if i boot with Knoppix, will it recongnise the new card without any trouble?

I will try the mknod and see if works out....else will give it up and ask someone else to take care of it.

It would have been so much easier if i had had an internet connection from that box, even easier if the box was physically accessible

I have been assuming you are sshing into the other PC since you do not have physical access.
I do not understand how Knoppix fits in.

If the card docs are correct about adding the devices, and if needed serial support is already in the kernel the only other issue should be drivers if the plotters on the new ports are not the same as the plotters on the old ports.

No, its a stand alone box. Whatever i have said before are the things that i had tried the last time when i was onsite.

I just didnt want to go onsite not knowing what to do next, so am just researching the possibilities that may have caused the problem.

And yeah the plotters are the same as the ones on the old ports.

Thanks

king_nothingzzz

Hi 2damncommon

Thanks for all the help...

I will try and ssh into the terminal today, and will keep in mind the things you have suggested.

Lets see how it goes...

Cheers

king_nothingzzz

Let me know if you have any luck.
Working with new stuff is always...interesting.