Using a Linux laptop as a serial console?

[reddragdiva]

Tomorrow I take my laptop in and use it as a serial console on a Sun box with a null modem cable. But I have no idea what application I would use to use the laptop as a terminal reading from the serial port (as opposed to serving a console on the serial port). On Windows I'd use Hyperterminal or TeraTerm. Um, help?

Update: Using Minicom right now with great success. (If the null modem cable doesn't actually fall to bits — I don't think there's a soldering iron here.) Thanks, all.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

Kermit

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

Or minicom, if you're a weenie.

[lithiana.livejournal.com]

tip

[sweh.livejournal.com]

kermit or cu (part of the uucp package). Both allow you to send BREAK if necessary.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

So does minicom. That makes me a weenie.

[aidan-skinner.livejournal.com]

No, if you're a weenie you use cat.

[reddragdiva]

I know, I should be using emacs.

[sinibar.livejournal.com]

You may find minicom much more intuitive than kermit.

Kermit is for the kind of person who asks for his tea as 9600-8N1*
Minicom is for people who don't want to (or don't have time to) read the manual.

[shevek.livejournal.com]

seyon is much less of a pain in the arse than minicom but requires X

[vatine]

kermit. Definitely kermit.

[sweh.livejournal.com]

% cat ~/bin/tivo
#!/usr/bin/kermit +
set line /dev/ttyS0
set speed 115200
set carrier-watch off
set flow none
set handshake none
connect
% tivo
Connecting to /dev/ttyS0, speed 115200
Escape character: Ctrl-\ (ASCII 28, FS): enabled
Type the escape character followed by C to get back,
or followed by ? to see other options.
----------------------------------------------------

bash-2.02#

[sinibar.livejournal.com]

Actually I have been stuck without any terminal software and did resort to using two cat sessions... or was it one cat and one tail -f? I can't remember, it was a long time ago!

[sinibar.livejournal.com]

I've actually always used kermit, but I use it so rarely now I have to do a quick refresher course every time I wheel it out!

I used to use minicom

[mouseworks.livejournal.com]

I suspect this is a what are you use to and what does the best imitation of the program you know, within reason.

[sweh.livejournal.com]

In 1992 I wrote a quite complicated scripting system to talk to an AT&T Easylink (a sort of electronic email and telex gateway), with checksums and so on... with all the conditionals and stuff done in kermit.

13 years later it took me 20 minutes to come up with the above script!

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

tip? Or does Linux not have tip?

[reddragdiva]

Ubuntu/Debian does not seem to have tip, unless it's hidden in an obscure package somewhere. I'll probably try minicom first.

Re: I used to use minicom

[reddragdiva]

I've just installed every package named here ;-) I've also installed putty for Unix, which I understand can be beaten into doing serial.

Re: I used to use minicom

[blarglefiend.livejournal.com]

minicom is basically a Telix clone. If you don't remember Telix, you're probably better off with Kermit. Seyon, if memory serves, is a complete PITA with a wacky Athena-based GUI that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

People don't do so much serial stuff these days so nobody seems to have bothered writing some sort of "modern" wonder-GUI app. Thus Kermit remains the state of the art. I so love not having to care any more thanks to remote console foo.

[reddragdiva]

And it turns out that putty doesn't do serial, but I might start using it as my default terminal anyway — you can tell gnome-terminal really is a natural-born GNOME application from its FORTY-SEVEN MEGABYTE MEMORY FOOTPRINT. For a TERMINAL EMULATOR.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

...

[jagaroth.livejournal.com]

$ minicom -o
Woops! I'm a bit late, oh well.
I just wanted to give my vote.

[reddragdiva]

And just wait till you see the rendering speed. The pango maintainer flatly refuses to optimise the 99% of usage case (7 bits of ASCII) because he feels the international case then wouldn't get attention. I can see his point, but the display speed is ... what was the word they used for the Lisa? ... "majestic." Yep, vewwy GNOME.

[reddragdiva]

Actually, I might be wrong about blaming pango. See the numbers. I didn't realise gnome-terminal didn't have a maintainer; mind you, I just installed all the bits for kubuntu-desktop, so I might start using konsole again instead. Or putty.

[jagaroth.livejournal.com]

I think I will just keep using good old xterm.