Bug#105451: update
On Sun, Jul 29, 2001 at 09:56:51PM -0700, Andrew Young wrote:
> ...
> >> This is why MAKEDEV can't configure ttyS14 by itself:
> >
> > MAKEDEV never configures *anything* really. It just makes files in
> > /dev.
>
> Sure enough. But it does so by calling mknod; so I'd expect the kernel
> to know the device exists, even if it isn't configured correctly.
I notice that I have just been added to this discussion list. Note that I
am not the author of setserial, but I am the Debian package maintainer for
it... and sorry for the layout of the message - the company that I am
working for have messed up the DNS entries so I had to use another system to
send this message.
In any case mknod just creates files with minor and major numbers, and does
not ask the kernel if these are valid. The validation only happens when
the file is opened. The kernel only recognises major 4, with minor 64-67
as serial ports by default. Kernel variable CONFIG_SERIAL_MANY_PORTS
provides extra minor numbers (how many ports this adds I cannot say).
This may or may not be set for you in the
kernel build... this information is printed out at boot time as " MANY
PORTS"
and I gather that this is not printed when the module is loaded, and thus I
am guessing that it is not set. I am getting this from the 2.4.7 kernel
source
so things may be different in other kernel versions (but I doubt it).
The names of the ports and there numbers are really not that important.
I am hoping that you only have a few serial ports in total (less than 4), so
you can hopefully use ttyS3 or ttyS4 and use setserial to configure them to
what you want without having to recompile the kernel. I can think of no good
reason why MANY PORTS is not the default, though it probably adds a few 100
bytes to the kernel size. You probably chose S14 as this is
a SPARE tty (whatever this means) in serial.h when MANY_PORTS is defined.
Hope this helps.
G.
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