Luminary eval boards, USB serial, and Linux

This is kind of off-topic, but maybe someone has an answer.

I use a laptop running Ubuntu for giving presentations, and my latest 
presentation involves talking to a Luminary LM8S311 evaluation board to 
give a demonstration.

This works fine on Windows XT -- connects right up, and I can do damage 
from the comfort of my chair.  But the laptop (running Ubuntu 8.04) 
doesn't see the FTDI chip on the eval board as a serial port -- even 
though it sees my el-cheapo Radio Shack USB-RS232 cable as such.

Has anyone run into this?  Have any pointers?  Any Linux groups where 
the folks may (a) have useful information and (b) won't treat me like a 
Londoner in Paris?

Thanks.

-- 

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" gives you just what it says.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html

On Sep 16, 2:05 pm, Tim Wescott <t...@seemywebsite.com> wrote:
> This is kind of off-topic, but maybe someone has an answer.
>
> I use a laptop running Ubuntu for giving presentations, and my latest
> presentation involves talking to a Luminary LM8S311 evaluation board to
> give a demonstration.

What is the LM8S311?
I have a LM3S811.

>
> This works fine on Windows XT -- connects right up, and I can do damage
> from the comfort of my chair.  But the laptop (running Ubuntu 8.04)
> doesn't see the FTDI chip on the eval board as a serial port -- even
> though it sees my el-cheapo Radio Shack USB-RS232 cable as such.
>

Does it detect and load the ftdi driver?  What does dmesg say?

On Sep 16, 5:17 pm, linnix <m...@linnix.info-for.us> wrote:

> Does it detect and load the ftdi driver?  What does dmesg say?

That would seem to be the path of inquiry.

Also determine the vid/pid pair either from dmesg or from windows, and
google on that in combination with linux.

Probably there is a driver .deb that needs to be installed

Tim Wescott <tim@seemywebsite.com> writes:

> This is kind of off-topic, but maybe someone has an answer.
>
> I use a laptop running Ubuntu for giving presentations, and my latest
> presentation involves talking to a Luminary LM8S311 evaluation board
> to give a demonstration.
>
> This works fine on Windows XT -- connects right up, and I can do
> damage from the comfort of my chair.  But the laptop (running Ubuntu
> 8.04) doesn't see the FTDI chip on the eval board as a serial port --
> even though it sees my el-cheapo Radio Shack USB-RS232 cable as such.
>
> Has anyone run into this?  Have any pointers?  Any Linux groups where
> the folks may (a) have useful information and (b) won't treat me like
> a Londoner in Paris?

It should work fine.

It should appear as /dev/ttyUSB0 (or 1 etc). As others have said look
at dmesg to find which.  The ftdi driver is in all recent kernels
AFAIK.

How are you trying to access the serial port?  Direct from linux or
from e.g. wine? Wine probably needs a symlink to the device node to be
manually created in ~/.wine/dos_devices.

-- 

John Devereux

John Devereux wrote:
> Tim Wescott <tim@seemywebsite.com> writes:
> 
>> This is kind of off-topic, but maybe someone has an answer.
>>
>> I use a laptop running Ubuntu for giving presentations, and my latest
>> presentation involves talking to a Luminary LM8S311 evaluation board
>> to give a demonstration.
>>
>> This works fine on Windows XT -- connects right up, and I can do
>> damage from the comfort of my chair.  But the laptop (running Ubuntu
>> 8.04) doesn't see the FTDI chip on the eval board as a serial port --
>> even though it sees my el-cheapo Radio Shack USB-RS232 cable as such.
>>
>> Has anyone run into this?  Have any pointers?  Any Linux groups where
>> the folks may (a) have useful information and (b) won't treat me like
>> a Londoner in Paris?
> 
> It should work fine.
> 
> It should appear as /dev/ttyUSB0 (or 1 etc). As others have said look
> at dmesg to find which.  The ftdi driver is in all recent kernels
> AFAIK.
> 
> How are you trying to access the serial port?  Direct from linux or
> from e.g. wine? Wine probably needs a symlink to the device node to be
> manually created in ~/.wine/dos_devices.
> 
At this point I'm just looking at the /dev directory for anything 
containing USB.  The Rat Shack example cable comes up with /dev/ttyUSB0 
as expected.

Ha: More info.  dmesg isn't very informative, but the Syslog is.  The 
Rat Shack cable comes up as a Prolific PL2303, and appears (per syslog) 
to be referenced by a driver (pl2303.c and usb-serial.c).  The Luminary 
part refers to "New device added (hal udi is 
'/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_403_bcd9_LM000001.if0') (and 
if1, and just ...LM000001).

Argh.

-- 

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" gives you just what it says.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html

cs_posting@hotmail.com wrote:
> On Sep 16, 5:17 pm, linnix <m...@linnix.info-for.us> wrote:
> 
>> Does it detect and load the ftdi driver?  What does dmesg say?
> 
> That would seem to be the path of inquiry.
> 
> Also determine the vid/pid pair either from dmesg or from windows, and
> google on that in combination with linux.
> 
> Probably there is a driver .deb that needs to be installed

What format?  It shows up on lsusb as 0403:bcd9 -- I'll try that first.

-- 

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" gives you just what it says.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html

linnix wrote:
> On Sep 16, 2:05 pm, Tim Wescott <t...@seemywebsite.com> wrote:
>> This is kind of off-topic, but maybe someone has an answer.
>>
>> I use a laptop running Ubuntu for giving presentations, and my latest
>> presentation involves talking to a Luminary LM8S311 evaluation board to
>> give a demonstration.
> 
> What is the LM8S311?
> I have a LM3S811.

The LM8S311 is a special version of the LM3S811 for dyslexics.

>> This works fine on Windows XT -- connects right up, and I can do damage
>> from the comfort of my chair.  But the laptop (running Ubuntu 8.04)
>> doesn't see the FTDI chip on the eval board as a serial port -- even
>> though it sees my el-cheapo Radio Shack USB-RS232 cable as such.
>>
> 
> Does it detect and load the ftdi driver?  What does dmesg say?

Dmesg doesn't say a heck of a lot, but syslog is informative.  No, it 
doesn't appear to load the ftdi driver, and when I attempted to do so 
the other day using sysmon ttyUSB0 didn't pop up, although I hadn't 
thought to look in syslog.

-- 

Dyslexics Untie!

Tim Wescott wrote:
[ ... ]
> Ha: More info.  dmesg isn't very informative, but the Syslog is.  The
> Rat Shack cable comes up as a Prolific PL2303, and appears (per syslog)
> to be referenced by a driver (pl2303.c and usb-serial.c).  The Luminary
> part refers to "New device added (hal udi is
> '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_403_bcd9_LM000001.if0') (and
> if1, and just ...LM000001).

I think you need to go to <http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm> and
download Linux drivers.  We've been using an FT232B (I think it's a B) with
Debian 4 (a 2.6 kernel) for a long time -- so long that I've forgotten what
we had to do to get it going.  As that page says, FT232 support is built
into 2.6 kernels, but not 2.4 .

        Good luck,              Mel.

On Sep 16, 4:59 pm, Mel <mwil...@the-wire.com> wrote:
> Tim Wescott wrote:
>
> [ ... ]
>
> > Ha: More info.  dmesg isn't very informative, but the Syslog is.  The
> > Rat Shack cable comes up as a Prolific PL2303, and appears (per syslog)
> > to be referenced by a driver (pl2303.c and usb-serial.c).  The Luminary
> > part refers to "New device added (hal udi is
> > '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_403_bcd9_LM000001.if0') (and
> > if1, and just ...LM000001).
>
> I think you need to go to <http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm> and
> download Linux drivers.  We've been using an FT232B (I think it's a B) with
> Debian 4 (a 2.6 kernel) for a long time -- so long that I've forgotten what
> we had to do to get it going.  As that page says, FT232 support is built
> into 2.6 kernels, but not 2.4 .

Yes, the driver code is there, but you have to enable it in building
the kernels or modules.

>
>         Good luck,              Mel.

linnix wrote:
> On Sep 16, 4:59 pm, Mel <mwil...@the-wire.com> wrote:
>> Tim Wescott wrote:
>>
>> [ ... ]
>>
>>> Ha: More info.  dmesg isn't very informative, but the Syslog is.  The
>>> Rat Shack cable comes up as a Prolific PL2303, and appears (per syslog)
>>> to be referenced by a driver (pl2303.c and usb-serial.c).  The Luminary
>>> part refers to "New device added (hal udi is
>>> '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_403_bcd9_LM000001.if0') (and
>>> if1, and just ...LM000001).
>> I think you need to go to <http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm> and
>> download Linux drivers.  We've been using an FT232B (I think it's a B) with
>> Debian 4 (a 2.6 kernel) for a long time -- so long that I've forgotten what
>> we had to do to get it going.  As that page says, FT232 support is built
>> into 2.6 kernels, but not 2.4 .
> 
> Yes, the driver code is there, but you have to enable it in building
> the kernels or modules.
> 
>>         Good luck,              Mel.
> 

I'm confused (well, that's obvious, but...).  I'm using Ubuntu 8.04 with 
a 2.6 kernel, and the ftdi_sio driver is already in there -- it's just 
not recognizing the chip.

Is this a driver that I can load and have the device show up in /dev?  I 
got the impression that the driver in the 2.6 kernels was essentially 
the ftdi driver -- am I wrong?

-- 

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" gives you just what it says.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html