> In Knoppix, the ls command shows 4 serial ports. > Despite what I said earlier, Fedora does the same. This laptop, which has no serial ports, still shows /dev/ttyS[0-3] if you run: ls /dev/ttyS* The problem becomes one of working out which, if any, of these devices work. Try setserial: setserial -a /dev/ttyS0 where -a tells setserial to report everything it knows about the serial device. There are three possible outcomes: 1) $ setserial -a /dev/ttyS0 /dev/ttyS0, Line 0, UART: 16550A, Port: 0x03f8, IRQ: 4 Baud_base: 115200, close_delay: 50, divisor: 0 closing_wait: 3000 Flags: spd_normal skip_test This means the device file exists and is mapped to a physical serial port, known as a UART. The following word is its type: usually it will be an 8250, 16550 or 16550A. 2) # setserial -a /dev/ttyS0 /dev/ttyS0, Line 0, UART: unknown, Port: 0x03f8, IRQ: 4 Baud_base: 115200, close_delay: 50, divisor: 0 closing_wait: 3000 Flags: spd_normal skip_test auto_irq This means that the device file exists but it is mapped to a broken or non-existent UART, described as 'unknown'. 3) # setserial -a /dev/ttyS4 /dev/ttyS4: No such file or directory The device file doesn't exist. > Wine, in Knoppix, is showing the same non-functioning with the > software as was the case w/ SuSe 11.0 > I've only tried two WINE apps so far. One 'just works' and can see all six serial ports, but it is known to run under all versions of Windows from Win98 to XP. This program downloads data from a flight recorder and can configure it (set aircraft registration, pilot details and sync its clock to the PC). The other one, from the same company, can't see any serial ports. This program was written for Windows 95/98 and has never been upgraded for later versions of Windows. It does the same as the downloader and in addition can analyse and display the data it has downloaded. What is the most target version of Windows for your programs? This may have a bearing on their ability to see the serial ports. IME serial ports are a nightmare under DOS or Windows 95/98. I tried programming serial ports under DOS/Win95 and could not discover any documented serial port APIs for DOS, Windows or on the Broland C libraries. I tried using some public domain assembler without much success before buying the COMM-DRV package from Willies Computing Inc, which worked perfectly. I tend to generalise this to mean that everybody who tried serial programming on the same platform ran into the same problems and everybody used a different solution. Consequently, I think it may be pot luck whether a program of that age can use WINE for serial comms. > I can tell you that this is an embarrassment for me since one of our > business lines is to convert people to linux! But the "answering/fax > machine" is running on Windoz! > I sympathise. However, have you looked for a native Linux solution? That may be the way to go, particularly as I'd expect a sensibly designed Linux FAX solution to interface more or less seamlessly with e-mail via the local MTA. Martin
