ALIX board serial console HOWTO

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ALIX board serial console HOWTO

This tutorial describes how to connect to ALIX boards using the serial console cable available on GOOZE website.

Introduction
GOOZE offers a very nice serial console over USB cable, which consists of: A USB to serial RS-232 cable [1]. An RS-232 null-modem mini converter [2]. You may add the cable when buying a kit.

USB to serial cable installation

This section describes how to install the USB to serial cable.

GNU | Linux
The USB to serial cable is based on the pl2303 chipset, which is supported since kernel 2.4 series. Connect the USB plug to your computer and the RS-232 plug to the ALIX board, as explained below:

Connect the USB plug to your computer

Normally, it should be recognised and available: ls -lh /dev/ttyUSB*

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crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 0 9 mars 11:50 /dev/ttyUSB0 In our case, the device is /dev/ttyUSB0. To use the cable, your user account needs to join the dialout group. This may vary with your Linux distributions. Run the following command to join the dialout group: adduser my_username dialout You may now use the USB to serial cable.

Connect the RS-232 plug to the ALIX board

Do not power the ALIX board until the console is ready. To access the console, you may use GTKterm or minicom.

Using GTKterm
GTKterm is a terminal available in most GNU/linux distributions: gtkterm -p /dev/ttyUSB0 -s 38400 Power the ALIX board, which should boot as follows:

Using minicom in console mode

Start minicom : minicom -b 38400

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The serial port is automatically configured:

Power the ALIX board:

Your serial console cable is configured!

Mac OS X

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To be written.

Windows Vista/7
Do not plug the adapter until the driver is installed.

Driver installation
Download and start Windows Vista/7 pl2303 [3] installer.

Accept license:

Click when finished:

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Plug in the USB adapter to your computer when finished. Open Devices and printers to view the adapter.

Here, the adapter is configured for COM6. You may change this value to any available COM port.

Putty

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ALIX board serial console HOWTO

Download and install Putty [4] terminal. Configure Putty default settings:

Configure Putty connection:

Connect the adapter to the ALIX board. Power the ALIX board.

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You are connected!

Changing ALIX serial settings

During boot of the ALIX board, enter 'S' on keyboard to enter BIOS settings.

The ALIX board is configured by default for 38400 baud. To change transmission rate, enter 1, 2, 3, 5 or 9 and save settings. This is it!

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Copyright GOOZE.EU 2011. Source URL: http://www.gooze.eu/howto/alix-board-serial-console-howto Links: [1] http://www.gooze.eu/usb-to-serial-rs-232-db-9-male-adapter-cable [2] http://www.gooze.eu/rs-232-null-modem-mini-converter-female-female [3] http://download.gooze.eu/embedded/pl2303/vista_driver_installer.exe [4] http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

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