Re: devfs + PCI serial card = no extra serial ports

Marek Michalkiewicz
2003-03-08T00:00:33Z

On Fri, Mar 07, 2003 at 03:28:28PM -0800, Bryan Whitehead wrote:
> I just found this:
> http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0212.2/0845.html
>
> Has this patch been accepted into the new kernel series? Or should I
> just toss this card (the NetMos PCI I/O card)?

No, and no. Try these patches (apply in this order, may need
some hand-patching to apply to the current 2.4.21-pre source):

http://www.amelek.gda.pl/linux-patches/2.4.20-pre9/00_parport_serial
http://www.amelek.gda.pl/linux-patches/2.4.20-pre9/01_netmos

Please test - I'd like to know if it works for you. It should -
I have 3 such cards in 2 servers, running patched 2.4.20 kernel
in production use for 3 months now (mainly serial ports used, but
2S1P cards were cheaper than 2S cards...). Attempts to submit
the changes have been ignored, so I gave up...

NetMos support was already in early 2.4.x kernels, later removed:

* parport_serial.c: Remove NetMos support, since it causes problems
for some people.

No idea what exactly these problems are, who "some people" are, why
NetMos support was not simply made a config option conditional on
CONFIG_EXPERIMENTAL, and why the link order bugfix (separate patch,
which only fixes an obvious bug) has been ignored too.

Perhaps you will have more luck than I did - test your card with the
patches for some time, if it works try to submit the patches again...

> >I hoped after "setting up" the serial ports with setserial some magic
> >would happen and they would apear in /dev/tts... but I was wrong.

I don't use devfs, so I never had this problem.

Hope this helps,
Marek