Linux is known to work with the following serial hardware.
- standard PC serial boards (COM1 - COM4), to which external
serial devices (modems, serial mice, etc...) can be connected.
Since PC's no longer come with them (but have the chips for this
purpose mounted on the motherboard), they are hard to find in
retail stores.
- standard PC internal modems (COM1 - COM4)
- Quickpath Systems Port-Folio 550e (allows IRQs of
3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 15)
Note: due to address conflicts, you cannot use COM4 and IBM8514 video
board simultaneously. This is due to a bug in the IBM8514 board.
Most modems today are PnP and most will (with some effort) work with
Linux. It's best to get one that has jumpers (shunts) to disable PnP.
In many cases, if you simply set the jumpers for a certain COM number
and IRQ number, this will disable PnP. You may also want (need ??) to
disable PnP in your computer's BIOS. If you can't disable PnP then
you may try:
- Boot Win95/98, configure the modem, and see if the settings are
preserved when you boot Linux. If not, then:
- Boot Win95/98, configure the modem, and then warm boot Linux so that the settings are preserved. You can do this with the
loadlin boot loader.
- Get the PnP tools from
http://www.redhat.com/linux-info/pnp.
They are also called "serial adapters".
* => "setserial" shows details of configuring
- AST FourPort and clones (4 ports) *
- Accent Async-4 (4 ports) *
- Arnet Multiport-8 (8 ports)
- Bell Technologies HUB6 (6 ports)
- Boca BB-1004 (4 ports), BB-1008 (8 ports), BB-2016 (16 ports) *
- Boca IOAT66 (6 ports)
- Boca 2by4 (4 serial ports, 2 parallel ports)
- Byterunner (claims low prices)
- Computone ValuePort V4-ISA (AST FourPort compatible) *
- Digi PC/8 (8 ports)
- GTEK BBS-550 (8 ports) See the mini-howto for this.
- HUB-6 See Bell Technologies.
- Longshine LCS-8880, Longshine LCS-8880+ (AST FourPort compatible)
- Moxa C104, Moxa C104+ (AST FourPort compatible)
- PC-COMM (4 ports)
-
Sealevel Systems
COMM-2 (2 ports), COMM-4 (4 ports) and COMM-8 (8 ports)
- SIIG I/O Expander 2S IO1812 (4 ports)
- STB-4COM (4 ports)
- Twincom ACI/550
- Usenet Serial Board II (4 ports) *
In general, Linux will support any serial board which uses a 8250,
16450, 16550, 16550A, 16650 (or compatible) UART, or an internal modem
which emulates one of the above UARTs.
Note: the BB-1004 and BB-1008 do not support DCD and
RI lines, and thus are not usable for dialin modems. They will
work fine for all other purposes.
Make sure that a Linux computable driver is available. This list
is a little out of date.
- Comtrol RocketPort (36MHz ASIC; 4, 8, 16 or 32 ports)
contact:
info@comtrol.com or
http://www.comtrol.com
driver status: supported by Comtrol
driver location:
ftp://tsx-11.mit.edu/pub/linux/packages/comtrol
- Computone IntelliPort II (16MHz 80186; 4, 8, or 16 ports),
IntelliPort II EXpandable (20MHz 80186; 16 - 64 ports)
contact: Michael H. Warfield,
mhw@wittsend.atl.ga.us
driver status: pre-ALPHA
- Cyclades Cyclom-Y (Cirrus Logic CD1400 UARTs; 8 - 32 ports),
Cyclom-Z (25MHz MIPS R3000; 8 - 128 ports)
contact:
sales@cyclades.com or
http://www.cyclades.com
driver status: supported by Cyclades
driver location:
ftp://ftp.cyclades.com/pub/cyclades and included in Linux
kernel since version 1.1.75
- Decision PCCOM8 (8 ports)
contact:
pccom8@signum.se
driver location:
ftp://ftp.signum.se/pub/pccom8
- Digi PC/Xi (12.5MHz 80186; 4, 8, or 16 ports),
PC/Xe (12.5/16MHz 80186; 2, 4, or 8 ports),
PC/Xr (16MHz IDT3041; 4 or 8 ports),
PC/Xem (20MHz IDT3051; 8 - 64 ports)
contact:
sales@dgii.com or
http://www.dgii.com
driver status: supported by Digi
driver location:
ftp://ftp.dgii.com/drivers/linux and
included in Linux kernel since version 2.0
- Digi COM/Xi (10MHz 80188; 4 or 8 ports)
contact: Simon Park,
si@wimpol.demon.co.uk
driver status: ALPHA
note: Simon is often away from email for months at a time due to
his job. Mark Hatle,
fray@krypton.mankato.msus.edu has graciously
volunteered to make the driver available if you need it. Mark
is not maintaining or supporting the driver.
- Equinox SuperSerial Technology (30MHz ASIC; 2 - 128 ports)
contact:
sales@equinox.com or
http://www.equinox.com
driver status: supported by Equinox
driver location:
ftp://ftp.equinox.com/library/sst
- GTEK Cyclone (16C654 UARTs; 6, 16 and 32 ports),
SmartCard (24MHz Dallas DS80C320; 8 ports),
BlackBoard-8A (16C654 UARTs; 8 ports),
PCSS (15/24MHz 8032; 8 ports)
contact:
spot@gtek.com or
http://www.gtek.com
driver status: supported by GTEK
driver location:
ftp://ftp.gtek.com/pub
- Hayes ESP (COM-bic; 1 - 8 ports)
contact: Andrew J. Robinson,
arobinso@nyx.net or
http://www.nyx.net/~arobinso
driver status: supported by author
driver location:
http://www.nyx.net/~arobinso and included in Linux
kernel since version 2.1.15
- Maxpeed SS (Toshiba; 4, 8 and 16 ports)
contact:
info@maxpeed.com or
http://www.maxpeed.com
driver status: supported by Maxpeed
driver location:
ftp://maxpeed.com/pub/ss
- Moxa C218 (12MHz 80286; 8 ports),
Moxa C320 (40MHz TMS320; 8 - 32 ports)
contact:
info@moxa.com.tw or
http://www.moxa.com.tw
driver status: supported by Moxa
driver location:
ftp://ftp.moxa.com.tw/drivers/c218-320/linux
- SDL RISCom/8 (Cirrus Logic CD180; 8 ports)
contact:
sales@sdlcomm.com or
http://www.sdlcomm.com
driver status: supported by SDL
driver location:
ftp://ftp.sdlcomm.com/pub/drivers
- Specialix SIO (20MHz Zilog Z280; 4 - 32 ports),
XIO (25MHz Zilog Z280; 4 - 32 ports)
contact: Simon Allen,
simonallen@cix.compulink.co.uk
driver status: BETA
driver location:
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/kernel/patches/serial
- Stallion EasyIO-4 (4 ports), EasyIO-8 (8 ports), and
EasyConnection (8 - 32 ports) - each with
Cirrus Logic CD1400 UARTs,
Stallion (8MHz 80186 CPU; 8 or 16 ports),
Brumby (10/12 MHz 80186 CPU; 4, 8 or 16 ports),
ONboard (16MHz 80186 CPU; 4, 8, 12, 16 or 32 ports),
EasyConnection 8/64 (25MHz 80186 CPU; 8 - 64 ports)
contact:
sales@stallion.com or
http://www.stallion.com
driver status: supported by Stallion
driver location:
ftp://ftp.stallion.com/drivers/ata5/Linux and
included in linux kernel since 1.3.27
A review of Comtrol, Cyclades, Digi, and Stallion products was printed
in the June 1995 issue of the Linux Journal. The article is
available at
http://www.ssc.com/lj/issue14.
Winmodems Don't Work
Modems that claim to be ``Winmodems'', for example the USR Sportster
Winmodem and IBM Aptiva MWAVE, are not supported under Linux.
These modems use proprietary designs that require special Windows
drivers. Avoid these types of modems.
Rockwell (RPI) Drivers May Work
Modems that require Rockwell RPI drivers are not fully usable
since the driver software doesn't work on Linux. The RPI does
compression and error correction using MS software on your computer's
CPU. If you are willing to operate the modem without using the RPI
(and thus have no compression nor error correction) then you may
easily disable RPI by sending the modem (via the initialization
string) a RPI disable command: +H0