This HOWTO covers basic info on the Serial Port and multiport serial cards. It contains much more information in it than most people need to know and most people are able to use it without reading this HOWTO. But if you're having problems or just want to understand how it works, this is one place to find out about it.
This HOWTO is about the original serial port which uses a UART chip and is sometimes called a "UART serial port" to differentiate it from the newer Universal Serial Bus. Information specific to modems and text-terminals is found in Modem-HOWTO and Text-Terminal-HOWTO. Info on getty (the program that runs the login process or the like) has been also moved to these HOWTOs since mgetty and uugetty are best for modems while agetty is best for text-terminals. If you are dealing with a modem, text terminal, or printer, then you may not need to consult this HOWTO. But if you are using the serial port for some other device, using a multiport serial card, trouble-shooting the serial port itself, or want to understand more technical details of the serial port, then you may want to use this HOWTO as well as some of the other HOWTOs. (See Related HOWTO's) This HOWTO lists info on various multiport serial cards since they may be used for either modems or text-terminals. This HOWTO addresses Linux running on PCs (ISA or PCI buses), although it might be valid for other architectures.
Copyright (c) 1993-1997 by Greg Hankins, (c) 1998-2003 by David S. Lawyer mailto:dave@lafn.org
Please freely copy and distribute (sell or give away) this document in any format. Send any corrections and comments to the document maintainer. You may create a derivative work and distribute it provided that you:
If you're considering making a derived work other than a translation, it's requested that you discuss your plans with the current maintainer.
While I haven't intentionally tried to mislead you, there are likely a number of errors in this document. Please let me know about them. Since this is free documentation, it should be obvious that I cannot be held legally responsible for any errors.
Any brand names (starts with a capital letter such as MS Windows) should be assumed to be a trademark). Such trademarks belong to their respective owners.
Most of the original Serial-HOWTO was written by Greg Hankins. mailto:gregh@twoguys.org He also rewrote many contributions by others in order to maintain continuity in the writing style and flow. He wrote: ``Thanks to everyone who has contributed or commented, the list of people has gotten too long to list (somewhere over one hundred). Special thanks to Ted Ts'o for answering questions about the serial drivers.'' Approximately half of v2.00 was from Greg Hankins HOWTO and the other half is by David Lawyer. Ted Ts'o has continued to be helpful.
New versions of the Serial-HOWTO will be available to browse and/or download at LDP mirror sites. For a list of mirror sites see: http://www.tldp.org/mirrors.html. Various formats are available. If you only want to quickly check the date of the latest version look at http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Serial-HOWTO.html and compare it to this version: v2.22 December 2003 .
For a full revision history going back to the time I started maintaining this HOWTO, see the source file (in linuxdoc format) at http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/docs/HOWTO/other-formats/sgml/Serial-HOWTO.sgml.gz.
Modems, Text-Terminals, some printers, and other peripherals often use the serial port. Get these HOWTOs from the nearest mirror site as explained above.
Modem-HOWTO is about installing and configuring modemsPrinting-HOWTO has info for serial printers using old
lpr commandLPRng-HOWTO (not a LDP HOWTO, may come with software)
has info for serial printing for "Next Generation" lprSerial-Programming-HOWTO helps you write
C programs that read and write to the serial port
and/or check/set its state. A version written by Vern
Hoxie but not submitted is at
Internet.Text-Terminal-HOWTO is about how they work, how to install
configure, and repair them. It includes a section on "Make a
Terminal the Console" which is useful for using a remote terminal to
control a server (via the serial port).Remote-Serial-Console-HOWTO is about making a
text-terminal be the console so it can display boot-time messages, etc.
Please send me any suggestions, or additional material. Tell me
what you don't understand, or what could be clearer. You can reach me
via email at
mailto:dave@lafn.org.
The conventional serial port (not the newer USB port, or HSSI port) is a very old I/O port. Almost all PC's have them. Macs (Apple Computer) after mid-1998 only have the USB port. However, it's possible, to put a conventional serial port device on the USB.
Each serial port has a "file" associated with it in the /dev directory. It isn't really a file but it seems like one. For newer versions of Linux which use the Device File System (devfs) an ordinary serial port is for example: /dev/tts/0. Formerly (before the devfs) this port was called /dev/ttyS0. Other serial ports are /dev/tts/1, /dev/tts/2, etc. But ports on the USB bus, multiport cards, etc. have different names.
The common specification for the conventional serial port is RS-232 (or EIA-232). The connector for the serial port is often seen as one or two 9-pin connectors (in some cases 25-pin) on the back of a PC. But the serial port is more than just that. It includes the associated electronics which must produce signals conforming to the EIA-232 specification. See Voltage Waveshapes. One pin is used to send out data bytes and another to receive data bytes. Another pin is a common signal ground. The other "useful" pins are used mainly for signalling purposes with a steady negative voltage meaning "off" and a steady positive voltage meaning "on".
The UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter) chip does most of the work. Today, the functionality of this chip is usually built into another chip. See What Are UARTs? These have improved over time and old models (several years old) are now obsolete.
The serial port was originally designed for connecting modems but it's used to connect many other devices also such as mice, text-terminals, some printers, etc. to a computer. You just plug these devices into the serial port using the correct cable. Many internal modem cards have a built-in serial port so when you install one inside your PC it's as if you just installed another serial port in your PC.