Serial problems

[Michael Malone <michael.malone@tait.co.nz>]

Hi all,

Here at my work we develop our code for an embedded system in linux, but 
the application we use to put firmware onto the physical device runs 
only under windows.  I am investigating the feasibility of running 
windows as a virtual machine, rather than our current situation where 
every developer has two boxes at their desk.  The new boxes at work 
don't come with a serial port, so I am trying with a USB to serial 
converter and running kvm like:

kvm -hda windows2.img -boot c -m 1000 -serial /dev/ttyUSB0 -smp 2 -usb 
-usbdevice "tablet" -full-screen -cdrom /dev/cdrom

I can do low-cpu tasks with the embedded device like reading the current 
configuration, but I can't do cpu-intensive tasks like loading a new 
firmware onto the device.  I have sniffed the line to see what is being 
sent down the physical wires and I have logged inside windows what the 
application was sending and the two are almost the same, until we meet 
an ascii null.  We log an ascii null (0x00) as being sent, but on the 
other side of the virtual machine 0xFF is coming out.  We can run the 
application with Wine and download firmware but can't read the current 
configuration, so it's not the linux usb to serial converter drivers.  
So my question is, do you have any idea what's going wrong? 

I have tried kvm72 and the 2008-08-12 nightly snapshot.
I am running an Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E6550  @ 2.33GHz with 
2048MB RAM on Ubuntu Linux 8.04 (Hardy Heron).

if anyone can help, it would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

Michael Malone


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