Problems with USB to serial adaptor

[david at thekramers.net (David Kramer)]

Jon Masters wrote, On 01/30/2005 07:47 PM:
> [ apologies for lack of reply threading, I just signed up and don't have
> a handy message to reply to. btw, hi. I'm going to be coming to Boston
> LinuxWorld in a couple of weeks and figured I might aswell delurk now.
> I'm in the UK now but will be doing a road trip down from Ottawa. ]

Great.  If you see me, say hello.  I'll be the overweight guy in the geeky 
t-shirt.   ;)


> David Backeberg writes:
> 
> | I don't know anything about gdb
> 
> The original poster probably wanted the "remote" target anyway.
> 
> | do you need to use gdb at all?
> 
> He wants to talk to a gdb stub on the embedded target, most likely.
> Stubs are gdb clients that let you debug stuff from a host box -
> especially useful if you don't have ethernet on the board since with
> ethernet he could just use a stub running on a TCP/IP port.

Just so.

What is happening is that we have this embedded development board.  We 
cross-compile our program under Linux to work with the ARM7 processor on the 
dev board.  gdb has the ability to load the program onto the board and run it 
remotely, giving full debugging output, over a serial connection.  So we hook 
the board up to the Linux box with a serial cable, run gdb, tell it to load 
the application on to the board on the given serial port, and then run it in 
debugging mode.

It works well.  We've been doing this on a desktop, and now we want to do it 
using my spiffy new, but legacy-port-deprived, Thinkpad T42.  Hence, the USB 
to Serial converter.


> | Did they wire the pins in a nonstandard way
> 
> He may not have working hardware handshaking on a USB adapter so might
> want to switch to standard 8N1 non-hardware handshaking at 9600bps.

How would I do that?

> | If this device is compatible with minicom, you still need to know
> | which modem settings to try.
> 
> Take out the dial strings from the Minicom Options, or use another
> client such as kermit or something similar. Personally, I still use
> minicom despite the recommendations of various others, because I'm
> stubborn and really need to be convinced that I am wrong :-)

OK, I didn't try that because I thought minicom wouldn't actually consider 
itself "online" unless it got a CD.

Thanks.
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