puppyserialdetect: detects serial mouse and serial modem

[BarryK]

Everyone and their dog needs to test this, as I need to know that it works okay
before putting into Puppy to run at every bootup.

See the Developer News for April 16:
http://www.puppyos.com/news.htm

I already know of one problem -- it detects ports ttyS0 - ttyS3, but some
(admittedly rare) internal true hardware PCI modems use ttyS4 (COM5).
I know, I've got one of them.

[jcoder24]

Puppy108r1

no serial mouse attached (usb mouse)

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# time ./puppyserialdetect 

real    0m2.258s
user    0m0.000s
sys     0m0.000s

serial mouse (and usb mouse) attached

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# time ./puppyserialdetect 
Type:modem|Port:/dev/ttyS1|Speed:1200

real    0m8.703s
user    0m0.000s
sys     0m0.000s

So far time the times are good. Will install a modem and post those results.

[BarryK]

serial mouse (and usb mouse) attached

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# time ./puppyserialdetect 
Type:modem|Port:/dev/ttyS1|Speed:1200

Hmmm, it is being detected at least, but is being reported as a modem, when
it should have "Type:mouse".
Is the ttyS1 (COM2) correct?
What model/manufacturer mouse is it?

[jcoder24]

Is the ttyS1 (COM2) correct?

Yes.

Swapped to COM1

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# time ./puppyserialdetect 
Type:modem|Port:/dev/ttyS0|Speed:230400
Type:mouse|Port:/dev/ttyS0

real    0m2.697s
user    0m0.000s
sys     0m0.000s

Swapped back to COM2

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# time ./puppyserialdetect 
Type:modem|Port:/dev/ttyS1|Speed:230400
Type:mouse|Port:/dev/ttyS1

real    0m2.703s
user    0m0.000s
sys     0m0.000s

I'll reboot and test again as a controll.

What model/manufacturer mouse is it?

Genius NetScroll

[BarryK]

Is the ttyS1 (COM2) correct?

Yes.

Swapped to COM1

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# time ./puppyserialdetect 
Type:modem|Port:/dev/ttyS0|Speed:230400
Type:mouse|Port:/dev/ttyS0

real    0m2.697s
user    0m0.000s
sys     0m0.000s

Swapped back to COM2

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# time ./puppyserialdetect 
Type:modem|Port:/dev/ttyS1|Speed:230400
Type:mouse|Port:/dev/ttyS1

real    0m2.703s
user    0m0.000s
sys     0m0.000s

I'll reboot and test again as a controll.

What model/manufacturer mouse is it?

Genius NetScroll

Do you now have a actual modem plugged in?

[Lobster]

I downloaded the .gz file (twice) and clicked on it from Rox but it would not expand. Most .gz seem OK. Is there something I need to do?

[tronkel]

Ths gz file does not extract. I therefore renamed the file as puppyserialdetect with no extension and then changed persissions in ROX Filer to executable.

This seemed to run but with an error message "cannot execute binary file"
I then dumped this error message to 2>/dev/null

The program then seemed to execute but with no output at all. So this does not appear to work on my system.

Microsoft serial mouse on tty0 This mouse is plugged into a serial porrt using a ps2 to serial adaptor so I wonder if the chip inside the mouse is actually correctly reporting that it is a PS2 type but the OS cannot dedect this because of the fact that the interface itself is serial.

Buy I wonder why the executable peppyserialdetect does not run or even give any sensible output?

[Sage]

Same problem - sorry, Barry.
Most users will not have a clue how to deal with .gz files. This has been one of THE major issues in Linux (file manipulation and installation) that, until you came along, the gurus refused to listen about. Technospeak isn't relevant to the 99% trying just to use the OS. The mark of a good scientist is how well their art can be communicated to and used by the unwashed masses.
I've spent half-an-hour already trying to guess how your file might be used. Frankly, I have absolutely no idea! No progress. Zilch. And I consider myself as an HW geek, so the chasm is about as deep and wide as it ever was.
Give me a definitive recipe and I'd be more than happy to help.

[tronkel]

Yes it's a hard life for talented scientists. As Sage said in the last post an everday measure of the success of any invention is its take-up and usage by the Great Unwashed (whoever they are!) Gosh I'm glad I don't have to associate with the likes of them!

I the meantime how to proceed with getting this mouse detection to work for serial devices. In one of my recent posts on this subject I mentioned that I had noted that Puppy simply does not remember the mouse setting on a re-boot. Maybe therefore the easiest solution is for the user to simply tell Puppy what sort of mouse he/she has and then for Puppy to store this until the next re-boot.

Maybe all that is necessary is to look at the Xorgwizard code and check if the correct mouse info is being saved to persistant storage. I'm not exactly sure where to look for this but I would have a go if I was pointed in the correct direction (no mousey pun intended!)

[BarryK]

I downloaded the .gz file (twice) and clicked on it from Rox but it would not expand. Most .gz seem OK. Is there something I need to do?

Open a terminal window where you downloaded it (Rox right-click menu --> Xterm here):

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# gunzip puppyserialdetect.gz

Then run it: EDITED: added chmod line, do this once:

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# chmod 755 puppyserialdetect
# ./puppyserialdetect

You must run it from a terminal window to see the output. This is not a GUI
application, it is intended to run during bootup and output to stdout (the console).

Also, if you are using the serial mouse while X is running, I don't know if that
will complicate things. You might also want to try it by exiting from X
(Main menu --> Shudown --> Exit to prompt), then "cd" to whereever it
is downloaded, then run it:

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# cd /root   (for example)
# ./puppyserialdetect

[Flash]

Here's what I got:

sh-3.00# gunzip puppyserialdetect.gz
sh-3.00# ./puppyserialdetect
sh: ./puppyserialdetect: Permission denied
sh-3.00#

[jcoder24]

Do you now have a actual modem plugged in?

No modem connected.


** EDIT **
Since the initial test each time I run puppyserialdetect I get the two lines:

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Type:modem|Port:/dev/ttySn|Speed:230400 
Type:mouse|Port:/dev/ttySn

I thought I had an internal hardware modem lying around, but that turned out to be a winmodem

[tronkel]

OK got it to work after gunzipping it and then altering the permissions to executable using ROX.

It now correctly detects my serial mouse on port tty0.

Now its a matter of getting Puppy 2 to run this at boot time ant then to hold the info for the next boot-up

Getting there!

[Lobster]

Many thanks - plugged in my USR Robotics - it should be 330000 for speed but I have had lower speed from other recognition software - so the firmware may be giving the wrong signal - point is it is detecting the modem . . .

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Type:modem|Port:/dev/ttyS0|Speed:230400

[Sit Heel Speak]

Puppy 2 alpha 0.0.3. Mouse is a Logitech cordless with the receiver connected through a USB-to-PS2 adapter. There is a Xircom combination PCI serial modem and 100BaseT network interface card factory-installed inside the Thinkpad but I am using only the network half not the modem. So far, Puppy 2 boots and runs well, except I lost the network connection to my local dedicated proxy server last night. I don't know if this is a Puppy 2 issue, a SeaMonkey issue, or a Sit Heel Speak issue. I downloaded the puppyserialdetect.gz file in Windows 98SE / IE6 and unzipp'ed it using TugZip to the root directory of the hard disk, then booted Puppy. Ran puppyserialdetect from rxvt, sending this from SeaMonkey.

BarryK is The Man...BE like him!!! --is my new motto. But I sure wish pakt would get Puppy, any Puppy, to boot from a USB key through the adapter card in my elderly Thinkpad's PCMCIA slot...

sh-3.00# time /mnt/hda1/puppyserialdetect

real 0m0.004s
user 0m0.000s
sys 0m0.010s
sh-3.00#

Sit

[BarryK]

Since the initial test each time I run puppyserialdetect I get the two lines:

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Type:modem|Port:/dev/ttySn|Speed:230400 
Type:mouse|Port:/dev/ttySn

I'm puzzled that you got a different result the first time you tried it.

For the sake of completeness, would you mind exiting from X totally, then
try it? ...just in case X is interfering somehow.

It's interesting that the modem detection code is thinking your mouse is a modem
...it must be responding like a modem, maybe that's why it's called a "net genius"
I'll study the detection code, and try to get my hands on more serial mouses to test (I only tried an old 2-button Microsoft mouse).

[BarryK]

Mouse is a Logitech cordless with the receiver connected through a USB-to-PS2 adapter. There is a Xircom combination PCI serial modem and 100BaseT network interface card factory-installed inside the Thinkpad but I am using only the network half not the modem.

Probably too optimistic to expect detection of a pcmcia modem!
...besides, it may not be a real hardware modem, so it won't get detected.

OH, maybe I better spell that out, for anyone else reading this thread:
puppyserialdetect ONLY DETECTS TRUE HARDWARE MODEMS!
...not those accursed internal winmodems.

I'm curious about your configuration -- does the Thinkpad not have a ps/2
socket? Or the other way round?

[Flash]

OK, I think I figured out what I did wrong when I tried to run the program. Here's what I get now:

sh-3.00# gunzip puppyserialdetect.gz
sh-3.00# chmod 755 puppyserialdetect
sh-3.00# ./puppyserialdetect
sh-3.00#

In other words, nothing.

I don't have a serial modem, or anything else that will work in the serial port.

[Sit Heel Speak]

BarryK, O Honored sir, I humbly greet thee and my heart doth sing...

I bought this Thinkpad, used, from a Seattle computer shop about 2 years ago. It is a Pentium-III Coppermine 800 MHz in the standard factory configuration, that is, 256MB of RAM, 20GB hard disk. Main chipset is Intel BX so hard disk speed is only UDMA2 (33MBps). A nice machine, I like it a lot, except the hard disk failed about a month after I bought it. Fortunately IBM's warranty was transferrable and it was still within the warranty period so I got a new one free.

It isn't a PCMCIA modem, rather it is inside the laptop, on the laptop's mini-PCI expansion slot. I don't know whether the modem half of the Xircom combo card is a true hardware modem or not, but probably not; Windows 98SE Device Manager calls it a "Xircom MPCI+ Modem 56 WinGlobal." Its NIC chipset is 3Com 82557. I've never used the modem side of it, since I surf through a dedicated proxy server (sitting beside my desk), through the network card side of it, over a 192Kbps ADSL connection.

The Thinkpad T21 has one each on the rear, of the following:

PS2 jack
USB 1.1 jack
100BaseT CAT-5 network jack
phone line jack for the modem
external monitor jack
parallel jack
9-pin D-connector serial jack
...and another jack looking sort of like the PS2 connector but with the alignment slot horizontal not vertical, which I forget what it is.

On the left side is a 2-slot PCMCIA connector.

I am able to boot either Puppy 1.0.8 or Puppy 2 alpha 0.0.3 from a USB key (a.k.a. "jump drive"), when vmlinuz and the other files are loaded onto the key (it is a SanDisk Cruzer Mini 2GB), when the key is plugged directly into the rear USB 1.1 jack, booting via grub.exe called in c:\autoexec.bat--in short, "Boot Puppy 2 alpha 0.0.3 from disk" is a menu choice in my regular Windows 98SE config.sys. The T21's BIOS is too old to support direct booting from a USB device.

When Puppy 1.0.8 is on the key I can also boot from pakt's WakeUSB floppy. The boot2pup and wakepup floppies however do not work.

When Puppy 2 alpha 0.0.3 is on the key I can boot from grub.exe on hard disk but not from the WakeUSB floppy, even when the WakeUSB floppy's autoexec.bat is edited to adjust for the difference in names of the ramdisk image et cetera.

What I am ideally after is to be able to plug the SanDisk into a USB 2.0 Cardbus adapter (Hewlett-Packard PM453A) which then in turn plugs into the Thinkpad's PCMCIA slot. USB 2.0 is about 8 times faster than USB 1.1 in real-world use. Doing so should make Puppy boot on this laptop in something like 15 seconds, not the 1:45 (for Puppy 2a 0.0.3) or 2:40 (for Puppy 1.0. that it now takes to boot from the USB key, using grub.exe, when the key is plugged into the Thinkpad's rear USB 1.1 jack.

Pakt has mentioned, elsewhere, that he owns a similar, possibly identical, 2-port USB 2.0 adapter card which fits into the PCMCIA port on his laptop, and so I am hoping he will be curious enough to work with it and adapt WakeUSB and/or the Puppy kernel to enable the booting of Puppy from USB key through this adapter.

Incidentally, for comparison, it takes 47 seconds to boot Puppy 2 alpha 0.0.3 when the files are on the hard disk, using grub.exe.

The Logitech cordless mouse is several years old, bought at a PC salvage shop, and its receiver has a USB 1.1 plug. I can't stand the Trackpoint device and have been using this Logitech mouse for about a year now. Since I only bought the Hewlett-Packard USB 2.0 PCMCIA Cardbus adapter a few days ago, until last Wednesday I had only a single USB jack --a notorious shortcoming of these early T-series Thinkpads. Therefore in order to use both my Logitech cordless mouse and any other USB device, such as my printer or the SanDisk, without resorting to a hub, I'm plugging the Logitech mouse's receiver in through a USB-to-PS2 adapter, into the PS2 port. This adapter is so common (and easily breakable) that I carry a few around with me as spares, it costs U.S. $3 at my local computer shop.

I also just found out the hard way, that it is not a good idea to unplug the USB-to-PS2 adapter from the PS2 port while Puppy 2 is running. Doing so loses the mouse and I don't know how to exit the joe window manager without the mouse. Therefore I had to depress the power button, therefore losing pup_save.3fs, therefore having to set up Puppy 2 alpha 0.0.3 with the network proxy data from scratch. Which is why it took so long to post this reply!

[tedward]

I get:- QUOTE


#./puppyserialdetect
Type:modem|Port:/dev/ttySO|Speed:230400
#

Seems to work OK. I use an external 56K serial modem.