1. Introduction

This is the Linux Serial HOWTO. All about how to set up modems and terminals under Linux, some serial tips, and troubleshooting.

1.1 Copyright

The Linux Serial HOWTO is copyright (C) 1993 - 1995 by Greg Hankins. Linux HOWTO documents may be reproduced and distributed in whole or in part, in any medium physical or electronic, as long as this copyright notice is retained on all copies. Commercial redistribution is allowed and encouraged; however, the author would like to be notified of any such distributions.

All translations, derivative works, or aggregate works incorporating any Linux HOWTO documents must be covered under this copyright notice. That is, you may not produce a derivative work from a HOWTO and impose additional restrictions on its distribution. Exceptions to these rules may be granted under certain conditions; please contact the Linux HOWTO coordinator at the address given below.

In short, we wish to promote dissemination of this information through as many channels as possible. However, we do wish to retain copyright on the HOWTO documents, and would like to be notified of any plans to redistribute the HOWTOs.

If you have questions, please contact Greg Hankins, the Linux HOWTO coordinator, at
gregh@sunsite.unc.edu via email, or at +1 404 853 9989.

1.2 Other sources of information

• man pages for: agetty(8), getty(1m), gettydefs(5), init(1), login(1), mgetty(8), setserial(8)
• Your modem manual
• UUCP HOWTO: for information on setting up UUCP
• Printing HOWTO: for setting up a serial printer
• NET-2 HOWTO: all about networking, including SLIP, CSLIP, PLIP and PPP
• BUPS HOWTO: setting up UPS boxen connected to your serial port
• Term HOWTO: everything you wanted to know about the term program
• USENET newsgroups:

  comp.os.linux.advocacy            Benefits of Linux compared to other operating systems.
  comp.os.linux.announce            Announcements important to the Linux community. 
  comp.os.linux.answers             FAQs, How-To's, READMEs, etc. about Linux.
  comp.os.linux.development.apps    Writing Linux applications, porting to Linux.
  comp.os.linux.development.system  Linux kernels, device drivers, modules.
  comp.os.linux.hardware            Hardware compatibility with the Linux operating system.
  comp.os.linux.misc                Linux-specific topics not covered by other groups.
  comp.os.linux.networking          Networking and communications under Linux.
  comp.os.linux.setup               Linux installation and system administration.
  comp.os.linux.x                   Linux X Window System servers, clients, libs and fonts.
  

• the Linux serial mailing list. To join, send email to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu, with
  ``subscribe linux-serial'' in the message body. If you send ``help'' in the message body, you get a help message.

1.3 New versions of this document

New versions of the Serial-HOWTO will be placed on
sunsite.unc.edu and mirror sites. There are other formats, such as a PostScript and dvi version in the other-formats directory. The Serial HOWTO is also available for WWW clients such as mosaic. It will also be posted regularly to comp.os.linux.answers.

1.4 Feedback

Please send me any questions, comments, suggestions, or additional material. I'm always eager to hear about what you think about the HOWTO. I'm also always on the lookout for improvements! Tell me exactly what you don't understand, or what could be clearer. You can reach me at greg.hankins@cc.gatech.edu via email. I can also be reached at:

Greg Hankins
College of Computing
801 Atlantic Drive
Atlanta, GA 30332-0280

Please include the version number of the Serial HOWTO when writing, this is version 1.8.1.

1.5 Disclaimer

Your mileage may vary. The answers given may not work for all systems and all setup combinations.