--- Begin Message ---
- To: adam@onshore.com
- Subject: Re: Bug#105451: update
- From: Andrew Young <aty@sciences.sdsu.edu>
- Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 14:28:53 -0700 (PDT)
- Message-id: <200107272128.OAA14338@sciences.sdsu.edu>
>>>> So the problem is still: how to get ttyS14 working so I can use the
>>>> modem?
>>>
>>> No idea. It's a kernel issue, i would gather.
>>>
>>> You are using the ppp on ttyS14 to install base, right?
>>
>> No. I installed the base system from floppies. But I need the modem up
>> to get the rest of the stuff off the Net. I'm trying to get ppp going,
>> but pppd says "No such device" when I try to use the modem.
>
> Oh. Is the original bug closable then?
Not yet... we still need to sort out a few things (see below). Besides,
this problem appears in the installation process, so it ought to be of
concern to the installation people.
> If the device in /dev/ wasn't there but should have been, that's a bug
> in the 'makedev' package, btw, that you might want to file.
>
> If the kernel is not seeing a port that it should, that would be a bug
> in kernel-image-2.2.19 or whatever you used.
OK, I'll try posting the story as a kernel bug and see what happens.
>> I *have* setserial installed, from the floppies. But when I try to use it
>> to configure the ttyS14 port, I get "No such device" -- even though ls -l
>> /dev/ttyS14 indicates the device is there. Any other ideas? Remember,
>> the hardware itself works -- I've been using this modem on /dev/cua14 for
>> 5 years with the old Slackware kernel.
>
> Well, maybe the kernel is not detecting it (whereas the slackware one
> did). Its possible slackware has a hacked kernel which looks for more
> serial devices.
It's possible Slackware has a *working* kernel and something is broken in
Debian ....
> Maybe the device is coming up as some other device, rather than
> /dev/ttyS14. I mean, you're just putting it at ttyS14 arbitrarily,
> right? Why not ttyS4 or something?
No. The reason for using ttyS14 is that the modem is using a non-standard
irq and memory port, which have to be set by setserial (at least in the
Slackware system) to make it work. This is all explained in detail in the
original bug report -- please go back and *read* what I first submitted.
This is why MAKEDEV can't configure ttyS14 by itself: somebody has to tell
it how to configure the port. In Debian's /etc, there is a file called
something like serial.conf in which you can enter the necessary info;
but that, again, gives "No such device" when the startup script calls
setserial to initialize the port.
> Maybe you need one of the binary only drivers, e.g., as discussed on
> http://www.toppoint.de/~chl/linux_on_512t.html ?
That points to www.linmodems.org so supposedly it applies to "Winmodems"
and not to real hardware modems, which is what I have. The only thing
that's strange about the modem is the irq and the memory port it uses;
apart from that, it's a normal (but made by some no-name clonemaker)
modem.
> You've looked through all the kernel output it gives at bootup? That
> should be visible with 'dmesg |less' or looking in /var/log/messages .
If I add the port-configuration info to serial.conf, the "No such device"
error appears there. I find no other output related to this serial-port
problem.
> This really feels like more of a hardware/kernel issue than Debian
> issue, really.
But if it worked under kernel 1.2.9 (the Slackware system), why is it
broken now? The provision of the configuration line for ttyS14 in the
serial.conf file shows that it's *supposed* to work, still....
-- Andy Young
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