HyperTerminal replacement in Ubuntu - Minicom

Posted Fri, 06/22/2007 - 11:30pm by str

I was kinda surprise that HyperTerminal is not available anymore in Windows Vista. No problem, I rebooted my notebook to Ubuntu and fire-up minicom.

  1. By default, minicom is not installed in Ubuntu, so you need to install it first.
    sudo apt-get install minicom
  2. Find the name of your Serial Port
    dmesg | grep tty
    In the output look for something like "tty". The output in my case is like this:
    $ dmesg | grep tty
    [ 17.341823] serial8250: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
    [ 17.342454] 00:0b: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
    This means the device correspond to my serial port is ttyS0.
  3. Configure minicom
    sudo minicom -s
    • Use the keyboard keys to select the menu item Serial port setup.
    • Enter A to change the Serial Device to /dev/ttyS0, and then enter E to change the line speed to 9600 8N1
    • Using arrow keys, select Save setup as dfl
  4. Select Exit from Minicom.
  5. Next time, from the terminal you only need to run sudo minicom in order to access your Cisco box.

Comments

minicom installl & config

by mjb (not verified) - 03/04/2010 - 10:03pm

Excellent concise tutorial. Had my Ubuntu box resetting my new(old) superstack in less than 5 minutes. THANK YOU!

hey bro, thanks for the grep

by fffrrr (not verified) - 07/30/2009 - 7:22pm

hey bro,
thanks for the grep | dmesg tty command. It was clear after that...

thx again

Nice

by Travis (not verified) - 05/15/2009 - 8:38pm

Good show, works perfectly. Minicom FTW

Big help for me too. Thanks.

by Anonymous (not verified) - 06/19/2009 - 9:38am

Big help for me too. Thanks.

thanks its helpful

by Anonymous (not verified) - 03/19/2009 - 4:36pm

thanks its helpful

Thanks

by Anonymous (not verified) - 01/24/2009 - 12:29am

I needed a simple explanation on how to connect my cisco equipment to my new ubuntu box, which I never used before.
A simple and quick solution.
Thanks!

USB Dongles

by Keith Tokash (not verified) - 09/08/2008 - 10:44pm

I use a USB dongle because my laptop, like most in recent years, doesn't have a serial port. The information above works great, and Ubuntu (Hardy) picked up the dongle immediately (Belkin brand dongle):

[ 5194.788330] usb 3-4: MCT U232 converter now attached to ttyUSB0

So /dev/ttyUSB0 is the device I used. Don't forget for Cisco/Juniper/Foundry to turn off hardware flow control and switch the speed to 8-N-1 (I'm spelling this out for googlers). This actually works much better under Ubuntu than it did in XP with vendor-supplied drivers, where it would bluescreen my box, hardlock it, or simply do nothing.

comport

by Anonymous (not verified) - 08/24/2007 - 2:02am

Apparently we aren't the only folks trying to communicate with an MRI and Microsoft/Intel took away the connectivity.

Minicom runs just fine as normal user if....

by CPScott (not verified) - 07/27/2007 - 8:28am

you make the user a member of the 'dialout' group. Then you don't have to run minicom with sudo after the initial default configuration. The Dialout group owns all of the serial ports in Debian/Ubuntu.

Thanks

by str - 08/01/2007 - 8:10pm

Thanks CPScott.

I have to say that this is

by Rich (not verified) - 07/26/2007 - 7:41pm

I have to say that this is the closest vt100 emulator I've found...although vt102 it still works very well and is simple to use.