May 2007 - WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

It boots. Now what?

by ken jones

I would like to get X11 services. I did an "emerge xterm". Here's what happened. ------------start snip------------- (chroot) livecd proc # emerge xterm Calculating dependencies | !!! All ebuilds that could satisfy ">=x11-proto/xproto-7.0.6" have been masked. !!! One of the following masked packages is required to complete your request: - x11-proto/xproto-7.0.7 (masked by: ~sparc keyword) - x11-proto/xproto-7.0.10 (masked by: ~sparc keyword) - x11-proto/xproto-7.0.9 (masked by: ~sparc keyword) For more information, see MASKED PACKAGES section in the emerge man page or refer to the Gentoo Handbook. (dependency required by "x11-libs/libX11-1.1.1-r1" [ebuild]) --------------end snip---------- What do I make of this? Another problem. My livecd prompt and my chroot prompt both see my ethernet card, eth0. However my new boot does not see the card. Ideas? Ken Jones

May 22, 2007

Re: [Wlug] [Fwd: Re: Multiple RS232 Com Ports...]

by Stephen Daukas

Hi all! Lots of good info... I hadn't stopped to think about a terminal server! OK, lets see about answering some of the questions... - - - - - - Yes, cabling will be fun. The sondes are used for sampling water... The sondes we use are cylinders approximately 2.5 feet in length and about 3 inches in diameter (one, called "big Bertha", is about six inches in diameter) . One end has a data connection that uses a round, screw-on, water tight serial connector, and the business end has several sensors sticking out (optical, chemical, conductivity, a little propeller for mixing water to be sampled, etc., etc.), all within a screw-on cage that protects the sensors from stuff like rocks passing by in the current (fast currents equate to rather large rocks). The idea is to have a tank of water (fish tank, cooler, whatever) fitted with Plexiglas that has multiple holes through which the several sondes are positioned upright, data end pointing up, with a bunch of cables hanging in-place above each sonde - think of the device that sets the bowling pins in place at the end of the alley... Anyway, you place a bunch of sondes into the tank (that has circulating water being maintained at a precise temp, % dissolved Oxygen, and so on), plug each sonde into the cable available directly above it, and then go to the *insert Linux solution here* and initiate communication, data upload, and calibration routines. (By the way, the tank is just about done - its is being debugged as we speak.) After upload and calibration (using the water in the tank), configure each sonde for the next deployment (how often to sample, etc.), turn them off, unscrew the cables and screw on a waterproof cover, remove them from the tank, and place the entire sonde into another protective chamber (6" PVC pipe with holes drilled in a specific pattern and capped on both ends) for another few weeks in some river/lake/coastal location. - - - - - - Yes, I may be confusing myself regarding "I/O device driver" versus "driver" for the sonde... However, I'm pretty sure that all I need is a vanilla "RS232 device driver" that will "just work" for any number of "com" ports by allowing some vanilla terminal emulation package (preferably one that has scripting capabilities) to talk to multiple RS232 ports. I could be wrong about this, in which case I may need to write some code, or perhaps the manufacturer might be thinking of supporting Linux. I don't do the day-to-day instrumentation work, but I am supposed to worry about it none the less. In terms of the "sondes going to sleep", this is based on concerns expressed by the lab along the lines of "if you hook-up the sonde and let it sit too long, you have to start over because it will turn itself off." Also, I use the term "vanilla" a lot because the staff aren't computer types - this has to "just work" like any other tool in the lab. Dear lord - we are talking about biology types after all! ;-) (Unlike engineering/geoscience types!!) - - - - - - So, the other question was about the necessity of having certain signals present. Again, I'm told that the sonde needs all the signals present in a DB-9. I'm guessing this may have more to do with not really knowing for sure and erring on the side of caution, but since there is hardware available that will do this and I can't spend all of my time chasing this down, I'll assume the information I'm getting on this topic is correct. (Biologists not withstanding.) I think this is where the multiport boards or a terminal server would come in... One of the replies mentioned writing a script, and that is what I was thinking about... Specifically, I was wondering if it could be as simple as a script sending the proper bit patterns to get the sonde to do the right things, pipe the serial data through the script and append the data to a file, and s on... (Was that you, John?) - - - - - - - Anyway, I'll have to take a look at the product references mentioned and contemplate what I might need to do in the world of scripting... I haven't heard back from the manufacturer yet, but I'm hoping this will turn out to be a simple project when all is said and done!! Also, I haven't used a terminal server before, so that should be interesting as well. Thanks! If you have any more thoughts, please let me know!! Steve On 5/21/07, Stephen C. Daukas <scd(a)daukas.com> wrote: > > > > -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [Wlug] Multiple RS232 > Com Ports... Date: Mon, 21 May 2007 15:44:09 -0400 From: John Stoffel > <john(a)stoffel.org> <john(a)stoffel.org> Reply-To: Worcester Linux Users > Group <wlug(a)mail.wlug.org> <wlug(a)mail.wlug.org> To: Worcester Linux Users > Group <wlug(a)mail.wlug.org> <wlug(a)mail.wlug.org> References: > <4650752A.1020203(a)daukas.com> <4650752A.1020203(a)daukas.com> > <18001.54171.525952.976484(a)stoffel.org><18001.54171.525952.976484(a)stoffel.org> > <20070521181244.GH4900(a)angus.ind.WPI.EDU><20070521181244.GH4900(a)angus.ind.WPI.EDU> > > Chuck> On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 01:15:07PM -0400, John Stoffel wrote: > >> darn good things about the Cyclades stuff as well. Stay away from the > >> Legacy Avocent (who bought Cyclades...) serial port stuff, it's crap. > > Chuck> Hmm I have to disagree here. We have the Avocent/Cyclades ACS line > Chuck> and are very happy with them. They run Linux inside and support many > Chuck> connection protocols, like Telnet, SSH, Reverse Telnet, Bidirectional, > Chuck> etc. Full RTS/CTS control lines including DTR are available. They > Chuck> support console logging to RAM, PCMCIA flash card, or remote syslog. > > Chuck> Perhaps you are referring to their older Cyclades TS line. > > I'm talking about the old Avocent designed CPS line of crap. You're > talking about the Cyclades designed stuff, including the TS and the > ACS. > > I've got an ancient Cyclom-Y ISA 8-port serial card in my main home > computer and it's been working great for for years. Wish I could > afford the newer stuff. > > John > > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > >

May 22, 2007

Re: [Wlug] Multiple RS232 Com Ports...

by John Stoffel

Chuck> On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 01:15:07PM -0400, John Stoffel wrote: >> darn good things about the Cyclades stuff as well. Stay away from the >> Legacy Avocent (who bought Cyclades...) serial port stuff, it's crap. Chuck> Hmm I have to disagree here. We have the Avocent/Cyclades ACS line Chuck> and are very happy with them. They run Linux inside and support many Chuck> connection protocols, like Telnet, SSH, Reverse Telnet, Bidirectional, Chuck> etc. Full RTS/CTS control lines including DTR are available. They Chuck> support console logging to RAM, PCMCIA flash card, or remote syslog. Chuck> Perhaps you are referring to their older Cyclades TS line. I'm talking about the old Avocent designed CPS line of crap. You're talking about the Cyclades designed stuff, including the TS and the ACS. I've got an ancient Cyclom-Y ISA 8-port serial card in my main home computer and it's been working great for for years. Wish I could afford the newer stuff. John

May 21, 2007

Re: [Wlug] Multiple RS232 Com Ports...

by Mike Frysinger

On 5/21/07, Stephen Daukas <scd(a)daukas.com> wrote: > The *how* is the heart of my question... If you mean how physically, that's > a matter of cable and such. what sort of magic cable ... ive seen implementations where it's a pci card that hooks up in the back to some octopus monstrosity which is where the rs232 comes in ... > The driver question is, again, what I was looking into. If Linux has > support for multiple RS232s built in > to one or more generic drivers in a given distro, then we are talking about > terminal emulation - a.k.a. > VT100 or ANSI or whatever. you're confusing things i think ... the kernel has drivers for different devices and that driver exports the multiple device nodes in /dev/ for userspace to utilize the important part is making sure a driver exists for your hardware in terms of other serial devices, there are no real limits in the tty layer > How do the RS232 FIFO/Interrupts get managed via USB? In other words, each > of the RS232s will need to have its "pin-outs" (DB-9) active so the sondes > believe they are connected in order to avoid their "turning off". the driver worries about it ? userspace just sees a serial device in /dev/ for it to open/configure/write ... if you're interested in looking at the actual implementation, you should just read the device driver in the kernel source -mike

May 21, 2007

Re: [Wlug] Multiple RS232 Com Ports...

by Chuck Anderson

On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 01:15:07PM -0400, John Stoffel wrote: > darn good things about the Cyclades stuff as well. Stay away from the > Legacy Avocent (who bought Cyclades...) serial port stuff, it's crap. Hmm I have to disagree here. We have the Avocent/Cyclades ACS line and are very happy with them. They run Linux inside and support many connection protocols, like Telnet, SSH, Reverse Telnet, Bidirectional, etc. Full RTS/CTS control lines including DTR are available. They support console logging to RAM, PCMCIA flash card, or remote syslog. Perhaps you are referring to their older Cyclades TS line.

May 21, 2007

Re: [Wlug] Multiple RS232 Com Ports...

by John Stoffel

Stephen> I'm wondering if anyone knows how many RS232 devices a Stephen> "vanilla" Linux kernel can manage simultaneously. I'd like Stephen> to be able to have up to 32 going at once, with data taken Stephen> from each device written to its own file via the standard I/O Stephen> subsystem. Not a problem, Linux can handle bunches of serial devices. But, the question to me becomes which way is more efficient: 1) buying multiport serial cards such as Cyclades Z series, or 2) buying a Cyclades or Digi terminal server instead, which has the number of ports you need. Stephen> As far as I know, wouldn't Linux simply fork the appropriate Stephen> number of driver threads to read as many RS232 ports as are Stephen> attached with each device's stream written to a "/dev" file? There's two questions here to answer. First, Linux is good at supporting lots of devices on a system. Second, reading each device is really a per-process thing, or you could have a single process reading each port in turn. It's a totally seperate issue really. Stephen> Why do I want to do this? Glad you asked... Actually, I was asking until you wrote this. Thanks for the interesting details! Stephen> I'm investigating an issue at work that involves our Stephen> instrumentation lab having to upload/download/calibrate Stephen> multiple sondes and have them ready for field deployment the Stephen> next day. Currently, we can do three at a time and this Stephen> takes about 8-9 hours providing everything goes well. Ouch. That must be some involved work you need to do here. Stephen> The manufacturer's software application claims to supports Stephen> the simultaneous upload/config of up to 32 sondes. The Stephen> application will scan "installed" COM ports looking for Stephen> recognizable sondes, and present those found to the user. Yes Stephen> - this is a windows solution, so I first began looking for Stephen> products that would play with Windows... Ugh... run screamming! Stephen> I began looking for hardware solutions (PCI boards, break-out Stephen> boxes, etc.) on the net and I found a few that will provide Stephen> 16 DB-9 RS232 ports with full pin-out support as well as Stephen> so-called "true" interrupt and FIFO support on the host (via Stephen> their own custom Windows driver, no doubt). Why are you looking for this in particular? Do the sondes require XON/XOFF or full RTS/CTS flow control? If they have/require full hardware flow control, most high-end multiport boards should be just fine. As well as any of the multiport terminal servers. I'm particularly partial to the Digi CM32 model right now. I've heard darn good things about the Cyclades stuff as well. Stay away from the Legacy Avocent (who bought Cyclades...) serial port stuff, it's crap. Stephen> And then I started wondering about how to get all of this to Stephen> work in a Windows environment where "IT" is the only group Stephen> allowed to install software and otherwise configure a PC for Stephen> most users whose biggest concern is email... The horrors of windows application support. Stephen> All this got me thinking about avoiding the whole Windows Stephen> issue and instead thinking about using Linux to take care of Stephen> the RS232 part, with the newly created files moved to a Stephen> Windows box (sneakernet to start with), with the normal Stephen> post-processing of the data taking place as usual in the Stephen> Windows environment the staff is used to... Stephen> I'm hoping an "out of the box" distro will be able to handle Stephen> say 16 RS232 ports and that Linux-based terminal emulation Stephen> software is available to simultaneously handle those ports as Stephen> well so I can capture the data using the appropriate Stephen> protocols... Anyone know of a similar application using Stephen> RS232 and Linux, or have some thoughts on this? None of this is a problem. And in terms of handling the ports, I'd probably just write a perl or expect script to do the actually driving of the ports and the handling of the on-sonode menus to grab the data you want. Basically, you'd just have a script which takes a serial port as the input parameter and just drives the port as needed. For example, make sure the Perl Expect::Bundle is installed: > sudo perl -MCPAN -e 'install Bundle::Expect' And then you should be able to open up a serial port connected to a Sonde and talk to it. It's really pretty easy, once you get over the humps. :] Good luck! John

May 21, 2007

My Ultra sparc64 booted!!

by ken jones

Thank you everybody for your help. My sparc64 finally booted. I used genkernel with the livecd cdrom's kernel 2617 /proc/config.gz. The last piece of the puzzle was getting fstab correct. Here is proof. -----------snip of uname -a ----------------------- kjones-sun2 / # uname -a Linux kjones-sun2 2.6.20-gentoo-r5 #3 SMP Thu May 17 13:58:22 Local time zone must be set--see zic sparc64 sun4u GNU/Linux kjones-sun2 / # -------------end snip-------------- I am not sure whether I learned anything specific to gentoo or to sparc64. I did learn that creating good open source documentation is difficult and that finding one's way through unfamiliar documentation is daunting. Thanks, again. Ken Jones

May 21, 2007

Re: [Wlug] Multiple RS232 Com Ports...

by Karl Hiramoto

Stephen Daukas wrote: > > On 5/21/07, *Karl Hiramoto* <karl(a)hiramoto.org > <mailto:karl@hiramoto.org>> wrote: > > Mike Frysinger wrote: > > On 5/20/07, Stephen C. Daukas <scd(a)daukas.com > <mailto:scd@daukas.com>> wrote: > > > >> I'm wondering if anyone knows how many RS232 devices a > "vanilla" Linux > >> kernel can manage simultaneously. > >> > > > > there shouldnt be any real limit ... at work, we have ~24 > USB<->RS232 > > devices hooked up and we use them all simultaneously to interact > with > > some hardware > > > > > >> I'd like to be able to have up to 32 > >> going at once, with data taken from each device written to its > own file via > >> the standard I/O subsystem. As far as I know, wouldn't Linux > simply fork > >> the appropriate number of driver threads to read as many RS232 > ports as are > >> attached with each device's stream written to a "/dev" file? > >> > > > > i'd be more worried about *what* the devices are and *how* you > connect > > your 32 devices to the machine ... making sure linux has proper > device > > driver support for it > > -mike > > > The *how* is the heart of my question... If you mean how physically, > that's a matter of cable and such. > The driver question is, again, what I was looking into. If Linux has > support for multiple RS232s built in > to one or more generic drivers in a given distro, then we are talking > about terminal emulation - a.k.a. > VT100 or ANSI or whatever. Currently, the lab uses hyperterminal to > talk with the sondes - the sondes > are intelligent and provide a tty-based menu for command and control. > The devices are known, so the > *what* isn't really an open question. > > > > Yes, there should be no real limit.. At work i have use multile > Edgeport/8 http://www.digi.com/products/usb/edgeport.jsp > devices to have may rs-232 ports > > > How do the RS232 FIFO/Interrupts get managed via USB? In other words, > each of the RS232s will need to have its "pin-outs" (DB-9) active so > the sondes believe they are connected in order to avoid their "turning > off". Also, is it safe to assume the edgeport has its own drivers? > > Regards, > Steve Take a look at: /usr/src/linux/drivers/usb/serial/io_edgeport.c What do you mean by turning off Sondes? your sensors? Your sensors, may read the rs-232 flow control pins, If the port is open() then they probably won't turn off. What ever program you write will be a lot of string parsing to send and receive data. I believe it is the case with all the USB/Serial adapter drivers that the driver polls over USB the usb/serial converter device. -- karl.

May 21, 2007

Re: [Wlug] Multiple RS232 Com Ports...

by Stephen Daukas

On 5/21/07, Karl Hiramoto <karl(a)hiramoto.org> wrote: > > Mike Frysinger wrote: > > On 5/20/07, Stephen C. Daukas <scd(a)daukas.com> wrote: > > > >> I'm wondering if anyone knows how many RS232 devices a "vanilla" Linux > >> kernel can manage simultaneously. > >> > > > > there shouldnt be any real limit ... at work, we have ~24 USB<->RS232 > > devices hooked up and we use them all simultaneously to interact with > > some hardware > > > > > >> I'd like to be able to have up to 32 > >> going at once, with data taken from each device written to its own file > via > >> the standard I/O subsystem. As far as I know, wouldn't Linux simply > fork > >> the appropriate number of driver threads to read as many RS232 ports as > are > >> attached with each device's stream written to a "/dev" file? > >> > > > > i'd be more worried about *what* the devices are and *how* you connect > > your 32 devices to the machine ... making sure linux has proper device > > driver support for it > > -mike The *how* is the heart of my question... If you mean how physically, that's a matter of cable and such. The driver question is, again, what I was looking into. If Linux has support for multiple RS232s built in to one or more generic drivers in a given distro, then we are talking about terminal emulation - a.k.a. VT100 or ANSI or whatever. Currently, the lab uses hyperterminal to talk with the sondes - the sondes are intelligent and provide a tty-based menu for command and control. The devices are known, so the *what* isn't really an open question. > > Yes, there should be no real limit.. At work i have use multile > Edgeport/8 http://www.digi.com/products/usb/edgeport.jsp devices to > have may rs-232 ports How do the RS232 FIFO/Interrupts get managed via USB? In other words, each of the RS232s will need to have its "pin-outs" (DB-9) active so the sondes believe they are connected in order to avoid their "turning off". Also, is it safe to assume the edgeport has its own drivers? Regards, Steve

May 21, 2007

Re: [Wlug] Multiple RS232 Com Ports...

by Karl Hiramoto

Mike Frysinger wrote: > On 5/20/07, Stephen C. Daukas <scd(a)daukas.com> wrote: > >> I'm wondering if anyone knows how many RS232 devices a "vanilla" Linux >> kernel can manage simultaneously. >> > > there shouldnt be any real limit ... at work, we have ~24 USB<->RS232 > devices hooked up and we use them all simultaneously to interact with > some hardware > > >> I'd like to be able to have up to 32 >> going at once, with data taken from each device written to its own file via >> the standard I/O subsystem. As far as I know, wouldn't Linux simply fork >> the appropriate number of driver threads to read as many RS232 ports as are >> attached with each device's stream written to a "/dev" file? >> > > i'd be more worried about *what* the devices are and *how* you connect > your 32 devices to the machine ... making sure linux has proper device > driver support for it > -mike > > Yes, there should be no real limit.. At work i have use multile Edgeport/8 http://www.digi.com/products/usb/edgeport.jsp devices to have may rs-232 ports -- Karl Hiramoto http://karl.hiramoto.org/ US VOIP: (1) 603.966.4448 Spain Casa (34) 951.273.347 Spain Mobil (34) 617.463.826 Yahoo_IM = karl_hiramoto GTalk= karl.hiramoto [at] gmail [d0t] com -- I have that old biological urge, I have that old irresistible surge, I'm hungry.

May 21, 2007