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USB to serial adaptors allow you to use RS232 based hardware via a computer's USB port.

I bought SiteCom's USB to serial cable and it works perfectly with Linux:

• open a console
• attach the adaptor
• read the syslog using the command

dmesg

• in the syslog you will find some lines reading like

[51904.256210] usb 2-1.6: new full speed USB device number 8 using ehci_hcd
[51904.341896] usb 2-1.6: New USB device found, idVendor=067b, idProduct=2303
[51904.341904] usb 2-1.6: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[51904.341909] usb 2-1.6: Product: USB-Serial Controller D
[51904.341912] usb 2-1.6: Manufacturer: Prolific Technology Inc. 
[51904.342508] hdj_probe() unsupported device, idVendor67b, idProduct:2303
[51904.342540] pl2303 2-1.6:1.0: pl2303 converter detected
[51904.344545] usb 2-1.6: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0

Testing with another computer

To test with another computer I connect the USB to serial adapter to my USB port, the other end I connect via a female-female cable to an older computer's com2 port. Then I issue on my computer

dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/ttyUSB0

on the other computer I use

dd if=/dev/ttyS1

And I can see how garbage is transmitted.

Using it with wine

To use your USB to serial adapter with wine, just link it as com1 to the dosdevices:

cd 
cd .wine/dosdevices
ln -s /dev/ttyUSB0 com1

See also

• hardware