[Wine] USB and serial

[Austin English]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 2:49 PM, Ben Okopnik <ben at linuxgazette.net> wrote:
> Hello, everyone -
>
> I have an old Windows app - a ship navigation program - that needs to
> see GPS input on a serial port (it was written in the pre-USB days.) My
> laptop, however, has no serial ports - but this same program, when run
> on a friend's Windows box, can read the GPS info from the USB-connected
> GPS via the "USB-Serial Driver". This is one of the frustrating bits of
> this experience, since a "USB-Serial Driver" under Linux appears to mean
> a module which drives a serial-in/USB-out dongle - not at all related to
> what I need!
>
> I've got the GPS - two different ones, actually - being recognized by
> Linux; in fact, the appropriate modules are being loaded, the
> appropriate device (/dev/ttyUSB9) is being created, and the NMEA
> sentences are being read (as confirmed by "gpsd -D2 -nN /dev/ttyUSB9".)
>
> My /var/log/messages says:
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Dec 31 19:38:16 Tyr kernel: [23431.897090] /build/buildd/linux-2.6.24/drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial support
> registered for Garmin GPS usb/tty
> Dec 31 19:38:16 Tyr kernel: [23431.897112] garmin_gps 2-2:1.0: Garmin GPS usb/tty converter detected
> Dec 31 19:38:16 Tyr kernel: [23431.897215] usb 2-2: Garmin GPS usb/tty converter now attached to ttyUSB9
> Dec 31 19:38:16 Tyr kernel: [23431.897226] usbcore: registered new interface driver garmin_gps
> Dec 31 19:38:16 Tyr kernel: [23431.897228] /build/buildd/linux-2.6.24/drivers/usb/serial/garmin_gps.c: garmin gps driver v0.31
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Jan  9 13:38:51 Tyr kernel: [20080.693463] usb 1-2: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 3
> Jan  9 13:38:51 Tyr kernel: [20080.900226] usb 1-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
> Jan  9 13:38:53 Tyr kernel: [20083.182714] /build/buildd/linux-2.6.24/drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial support
> registered for pl2303
> Jan  9 13:38:53 Tyr kernel: [20083.183795] pl2303 1-2:1.0: pl2303 converter detected
> Jan  9 13:38:53 Tyr kernel: [20083.184503] usb 1-2: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB9
> Jan  9 13:38:53 Tyr kernel: [20083.185094] usbcore: registered new interface driver pl2303
> Jan  9 13:38:53 Tyr kernel: [20083.185101] /build/buildd/linux-2.6.24/drivers/usb/serial/pl2303.c: Prolific PL2303 USB to serial
> adaptor driver
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> As far as Wine goes, I've got a link in ~/.wine/dosdevices - in fact,
> I've created _all_ the com ports that the app recognizes (COM1 through
> COM9) and linked them to /dev/ttyUSB9. Unfortunately, there's no joy in
> Mudville: the app does not see the data. Even the nice little feature in
> its configurator which shows the raw input on any of the com ports is
> completely silent.
>
> What could I possibly be missing? Is there any way to troubleshoot those
> com ports from inside Wine (perhaps by listening to them with, I dunno,
> Hyperterm or something)? Am I mistaken in the whole concept of linking a
> USB device to a com port? Any and all suggestions would be highly
> appreciated; I've lost many, many hours to beating my head against this
> particular brick wall.
>
>
> --
> * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *
>
>

Serial support in wine is pretty buggy:
http://bugs.winehq.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=serial+port

-- 
-Austin