# Serial, what do i need to do? [solved]

## turkystuffing

Ok, I have a palmV which connects using serial.

What do I need in my kernel etc. to get serial working? And where do I find it in the kernal config?

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## i92guboj

```

Device Drivers  --->      

  Character devices  --->  

    Serial drivers  --->

       <*> 8250/16550 and compatible serial support

```

That should give you the stardard serial port support. Recompile and reinstall the kernel as usual, and reboot.[/code]

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## turkystuffing

sorry for the lack of a reply, been v busy :S

Might just be me being stupid but that isn't working. If I press the hotsync button nothing shows up in dmsg and kpilot is not detecting it at all.

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## morodoch

When you say "serial" do you mean good old fashioned rs232 or that new-fangled USB?  :Very Happy: 

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## turkystuffing

good old fashoned, as in /___\ shaped  :Smile: 

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## morodoch

I guess it could either be a device pathname thing or a permissions thing.

What device are you set up to using? What's the output of ls -l of it?

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## turkystuffing

 :Confused:  erm... its 2.6.14-gentoo 64bit, what *should* i be using?

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## morodoch

Sorry, I'm probably not explaining myself very well.

I use jpilot, but I guess the same thing is true of the kde app. You have to tell it which serial port the device is connected through. In jpilot it file->preferences->settings.

You need to have a device like /dev/ttyS0 = com1 or /dev/ttyS1 = com2.

I think you probably also need to set the speed. My treo uses USB, so the speed isn't applicable, but I think this's probably what you need to do.

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## turkystuffing

only got one plug...

Kpilot can scan for the device, it doesn't find it, and it doesn't like ttyS0 either

```
22:09:29 Trying to open device /dev/ttyS0...

22:09:29 Could not open device: /dev/ttyS0 (will retry)
```

It works on my ubuntu partition...

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## morodoch

What does this command show?

```
ls -l /dev/ttyS*
```

Also, you need to make sure that your serial port setup speed matches that of the device; you'll probably find this in the manual, I guess.

If the devices aren't talking at the same speed, they won't talk to each other at all  :Sad: 

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## turkystuffing

```
christopher@C0bra ~ $ ls -l /dev/ttyS*

lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 5 Dec 14 20:56 /dev/ttyS0 -> tts/0

lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 5 Dec 14 20:56 /dev/ttyS1 -> tts/1

lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 5 Dec 14 20:56 /dev/ttyS2 -> tts/2

lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 5 Dec 14 20:56 /dev/ttyS3 -> tts/3

lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 5 Dec 14 20:56 /dev/ttyS4 -> tts/4

lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 5 Dec 14 20:56 /dev/ttyS5 -> tts/5

lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 5 Dec 14 20:56 /dev/ttyS6 -> tts/6

lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 5 Dec 14 20:56 /dev/ttyS7 -> tts/7

```

I tried them all, and the speeds are the same.

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## morodoch

Hmm. I was hoping for permissions - sorry.

Try this:

```
ls -lL /dev/ttyS*
```

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## fizzmahon

im in the exact same position, same palm and everything. wierd thing is my name is christopher too! haha!

heres my results.

crw-rw----  1 root tty 4, 64 Nov 20 01:57 /dev/ttyS0

crw-rw----  1 root tty 4, 65 Nov 20 01:57 /dev/ttyS1

crw-rw----  1 root tty 4, 66 Nov 20 01:57 /dev/ttyS2

crw-rw----  1 root tty 4, 67 Nov 20 01:57 /dev/ttyS3

thanks,

FiZZ

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## morodoch

From this ls, I guess that you need to be in the tty group to access the devices. You can do this as follows:

```
gpasswd -a <yourusername> tty
```

You'll then have to re-login to get yourself into that group. This will at least allow you to access the device - you'll still need to get the speed settings correct.

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## turkystuffing

Result! Its working!  :Very Happy: 

Shall I be changing this to [solved]?

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## morodoch

I guess if it's fixed, it's fixed - mark it as solved. Glad to hear everything's OK.

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## turkystuffing

done, all sincing now!  :Very Happy: 

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## SMoo

This helped me get to the config on my Cisco 2900 series XL as well.

Thanks a bunch!

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