[Wylug-discuss] On-board Serial Ports

[Martyn Ranyard]

Hi All,

  One of the things that has been bugging me for some time now is with SBCs and
recent motherboards, the onboard com ports seem completely unreliable under Linux.

  Taking this to its most bizarre conclusion, we tend to use USB<->RS232
adapters which work well under linux to connect serial modems.  This may seem a
strange combination, but is the one which works.

  So, being that onboard ports always seem to get the "standard"* IRQ and IO
addresses, is there anything I'm missing, I've not messed around too much with
it, but given the "standard"ness of the ports, the instability (feels like irq
conflicts) thereof annoys/disturbs me.

  The alternative of course would be to find a good, cheap USB faxmodem, and not
worry about it.  What's really annoying is that serial mice seem to work okay,
but modems slow to a crawl.

  Any tips/tricks people have done to get faxmodems working on modern onboard
serial ports?

--
Martyn Ranyard
Development Manager
Synergistic Software
(01937) 573 446
http://www.syn.co.uk/

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