This is the Linux Serial HOWTO. This covers info on the Serial Port that is not available in other HOWTO's. It includes how to set up modems under Linux, some serial tips, and troubleshooting advice. Another HOWTO exists for terminals (see Related HOWTO's). This HOWTO addresses Linux running on Intel x86 hardware, although it might work for other architectures.
Copyright (c) 1993 - 1997 by Greg Hankins, 1998 by David Lawyer. This
document may be distributed under the terms set forth in the LDP
license at
http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/COPYRIGHT.html. This document
may not be distributed in modified form without consent of the author.
Serial-Programming-HOWTO helps you write
C programs (or parts of them) that handle the serial port.
You may do the equivalent of "stty ...", open ports in various
modes, and more.
Text-Terminal-HOWTO is all about character-cell
terminals (dumb terminals ?).
I, David Lawyer, am the new maintainer (Greg Hankins was the original author and maintainer). This is a minor revision and I haven't checked out much of the info to see if it's up-to-date. There is much work to do on this. Let me know what's wrong or missing. In the future, I may do a 3-way split on this Howto: 1. Info on terminals into Text-Terminal-HOWTO. 2. Info on modems into a new Howto: Modem-HOWTO. 3. More info on the Serial Port added to this Howto. Thus look for major new versions in Aug. or Sept. 1998.
New versions of the Serial HOWTO will be available at
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/Serial-HOWTO
and mirror sites. There are other formats, such as Postscript and DVI
versions in the other-formats directory. The Serial HOWTO is also
available at
http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/Serial-HOWTO.html
and will be posted to
comp.os.linux.answers monthly.
Please send me any questions, comments, suggestions, or additional
material. I'm always eager to hear about what you think about this
HOWTO. I'm also always on the lookout for improvements! Tell me
exactly what you don't understand, or what could be clearer. You can
reach me at
bf347@lafn.org (David Lawyer) via email.
Your mileage may vary. The answers given may not work for all systems and all setup combinations.