wrong number of serial port detected

Jason Dravet
2005-12-07T15:44:31Z

Hello,

I have a question about the way serial ports are detected. Since I started
using udev last year I noticed 32 ttySxx nodes in my /dev directory. I
checked dmesg and the serial port driver was detecting 32 ports. Here is
the line from dmesg:
Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 32 ports, IRQ sharing enabled
In fact I don't have 32 ports. I have two serial ports on the motherboard,
both of which are disabled in the BIOS. I opened a bug in RedHat's bugzilla
system and it was promptly closed saying this was unfixable. I was told
that the kernel loaded the maximum number of ports supported by the serial
port driver. I asked why and I have not received a response. So I ask this
mailing list Can the kernel detect the proper number of serial ports or not?

Thanks,
Jason