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Serial HOWTO

David S.Lawyer dave@lafn.org original by Greg Hankins

v2.22 December 2003


This document describes the UART serial port features other than those which should be covered by Modem-HOWTO, PPP-HOWTO, Serial-Programming-HOWTO, or Text-Terminal-HOWTO. It lists info on multiport serial cards. It contains technical info about the serial port itself in more detail than found in the above HOWTOs and should be best for troubleshooting when the problem is the serial port itself. If you are dealing with a Modem, PPP (used for Internet access on a phone line), or a Text-Terminal, those HOWTOs should be consulted first.

1. Introduction

2. How the Hardware Transfers Bytes

3. Serial Port Basics

4. Is the Serial Port Obsolete?

5. Multiport Serial Boards/Cards/Adapters

6. Servers for Serial Ports

7. Configuring Overview

8. Locating the Serial Port: IO address, IRQs

9. Configuring the Serial Driver (high-level) "stty"

10. Serial Port Devices /dev/tts/2 = /dev/ttyS2, etc.

11. Interesting Programs You Should Know About

12. Speed (Flow Rate)

13. Locking Out Others

14. Communications Programs And Utilities

15. Serial Tips And Miscellany

16. Troubleshooting

17. Interrupt Problem Details

18. What Are UARTs? How Do They Affect Performance?

19. Pinout and Signals

20. Voltage Waveshapes

21. Other Serial Devices (not async EIA-232)

22. Other Sources of Information

23. Appendix: Obsolete Hardware (prior to 1990) Info


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