I have two PCs running FC6. This PC has 2 onboard serial ports and the other has 1.

I installed gtkterm

I made myself a member of uucp (not that that makes any difference)

On this machine, I can only connect to /dev/ttyS0, it says S1 is not available. Its fine in the bios and on windows it works just perfectly.

Other machine I can connect /dev/ttyS0

However the ports are dead as a nail. I got a loopback in the port (pin 2 to 3 shorted). I put the same device in my notebook running knoppix and it works perfectly my typing is echoed back.

I know the ports are correct and operational.

What is up with FC6? Is there some grub command I need to get the serial ports working?

I got a NMEA gps connected and it works perfectly under windows, but the serial ports don't work under FC6

Any help please?

To determine if the ports were detected on boot, as root, enter this command:
'stty -a < /dev/ttyS0' (ttyS0 = COM1, ttyS1 = COM2)

If you see output like:
speed 9600 baud; rows 0; columns 0; line = 0;
intr = ^C; quit = ^\; erase = ^?; kill = ^U; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>;
eol2 = <undef>; swtch = <undef>; start = ^Q; stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; rprnt = ^R;
werase = ^W; lnext = ^V; flush = ^O; min = 1; time = 0;
-parenb -parodd cs8 hupcl -cstopb cread clocal -crtscts
-ignbrk -brkint -ignpar -parmrk -inpck -istrip -inlcr -igncr icrnl ixon -ixoff
-iuclc -ixany -imaxbel -iutf8
opost -olcuc -ocrnl onlcr -onocr -onlret -ofill -ofdel nl0 cr0 tab0 bs0 vt0 ff0
isig icanon iexten echo echoe echok -echonl -noflsh -xcase -tostop -echoprt
echoctl echoke

The the port was detected and should be working.

The ports are owned by root by default. As root, use the 'chown' command to change ownership of the devices to your regular username, as in:
'chown myusername /dev/ttyS0'

Then try gtkterm again.

If it still doesn't work, try running gtkterm as root.

Thanks for the help.

I ran stty (as root) and this is what I got:

[root@]# /bin/stty -a < /dev/ttyS0
speed 38400 baud; rows 0; columns 0; line = 0;
intr = ^C; quit = ^\; erase = ^?; kill = ^U; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>;
eol2 = <undef>; swtch = <undef>; start = ^Q; stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; rprnt = ^R;
werase = ^W; lnext = ^V; flush = ^O; min = 1; time = 0;
-parenb -parodd cs8 hupcl -cstopb cread -clocal -crtscts
-ignbrk -brkint -ignpar -parmrk -inpck -istrip -inlcr -igncr icrnl ixon -ixoff
-iuclc -ixany -imaxbel -iutf8
opost -olcuc -ocrnl onlcr -onocr -onlret -ofill -ofdel nl0 cr0 tab0 bs0 vt0 ff0
isig icanon iexten echo echoe echok -echonl -noflsh -xcase -tostop -echoprt
echoctl echoke
[root@]# /bin/stty -a < /dev/ttyS1
bash: /dev/ttyS1: No such device or address

[root@]# setserial /dev/ttyS0
Cannot get serial info: Invalid argument
[root@]# setserial /dev/ttyS1
/dev/ttyS1: No such device or address

What is weird /dev/ttyS1 should work the PC has two ports..


I ran gtkterm from root and I still don't get any reply. Pin 2 and 3 are shorted. On any windows machine or my notebook running knoppix it just echo's back what I type.

I also know my serial gps is running at 4800 /8/n/1 as if I connect using my notebook on the same cable, I see the NMEA output every sec.

Any idea's?

I presume until I can see my GPS output I am wasting my time playing with ntpd

Thanks!