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Accepted
Alex
Asked: 2023-10-27 20:54:21 +0800 CST

How to read data from a serial port?

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In ubuntu 22.04.2 I am trying to read the data coming from a serial port. To find the correct port I do

sudo dmesg | grep tty

which gives

[    0.117304] printk: console [tty0] enabled
[    0.793135] 0000:00:16.3: ttyS4 at I/O 0x3060 (irq = 19, base_baud = 115200) is a 16550A
[    4.136977] usb 3-6.3.2: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[27184.158691] ftdi_sio ttyUSB0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0
[27190.409672] usb 3-6.3.2: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0

after disconnecting and reconnecting the USB device (around time 28180). Then according to this suggestion I do

screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200

but all I get is

[screen is terminating]

So how to do it AS SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE without setting up configuration, clicking through menues or navigating on the command line through complex setup stuff? I just want to listen to some information that comes from this serial connection (which is connected to the laptop via USB).

On windows I could use

  • hterm
  • putty
  • MOBA xterm

But what to use on ubuntu?

command-line

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    It seems minicom is in fact what I can use simply. I installed it using

    sudo apt-get install minicom

    and then I use

    sudo dmesg | grep tty

    to find the correct device, and using

    sudo minicom -b 115200 -o -D /dev/ttyUSB0

    if your device is /dev/ttyUSB0. You have to specify the baudrate -b 115200, I start it uninitialized -o and specify the device to connect to -D /dev/ttyUSB0.

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  2. Since you have screen still installed, double check if the user has the proper group permissions to interact with the serial device. From this post it suggests adding your user to the dialout group with usermod -a -G dialout $USER. If all else fails, maybe try with sudo screen instead.

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