I've tested minicom in a squeeze chroot using the byte sequence I provided earlier. I could not reproduce the problem. Minicom displays a strange character (as would be expected) but does not assert. I tested with: ii libc6 2.11.2-2 Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries ii minicom 2.4-2 friendly menu driven serial communication program So, I think we can call this fixed in squeeze. Thanks. Mike.