[time-nuts] TimeLab with Wine: No RS232 interface available

[Jim Lux]

On 2/7/15 7:13 AM, joerg wrote:
> Thank you all. Unfortunatly I'm still not able to get TimeLab
> in contact with any of my RS232 interfaces. Is there may an
> option when calling limelab.exe to force the usage of a
> defined port?
>
> Inbetween I tried also a lot with system.reg. HTerm is very
> tolerant to the names given to the ports, TimeLab still can't find
> any port.
> BTW: I use HTerm only to check if other windows programms
> can use the ports. When I normaly need a terminal I use a Linux
> program like Putty. I only use Wine with a window program
> if there is really no Linux alternative. So my Wine and windows
> knowledge is limited.

one way to tell if a port is "alive and visible" under windows is to try 
and use the "mode" command at the command prompt:
C:\> mode com2:

it will fail if the port doesn't exist, or is opened by some other 
process.  It is NOT unusual for a port to be grabbed up by some process, 
which then dies without releasing it.   I have a bunch of Singleboard 
PCs running Windows 7 with a Garmin 18 hanging on COM1.  Every once in a 
while, the python program which I use to read it dies because COM1 is in 
use.

There's also the whole "microsoft serial mouse device" problem.  A 
typical Windows 7 install (and other versions as well) will have a MS 
serial mouse device in the device manager, and when booting, the device 
driver goes out and looks for the mouse on COM1 (and maybe other COM 
devices) If the wrong characters come back from the device at the wrong 
time (e.g. something from the GPS receiver), the mouse driver takes over 
the device (and randomly moves the cursor around the screen, sometimes). 
  You need to explicitly disable the device (and/or remove it) in Device 
Manager.



>
> In detail to your answers:
>
> "Magnus Danielson" <magnus at rubidium.dyndns.org>
>> The trick is to link /dev/ttyS0 (or whatever) so that it occurs in
>> ~/.wine/dosdevices/com1 which seemed to help a bit.
> Already did this, and tried it now also in the folder where the
> timelab.exe is in case that there is a problem  with the path.
> No success.
>
> "Mark Sims" <holrum at hotmail.com>
>> I have seen several issues with Windows programs not releasing (or perhaps
>> not being able to releaase) the serial ports after using them. Once one of
>> these programs accesses the serial port, no other programs can use it until
>> you re-boot. I'm fighting windoze Hypertrm right now over this issue
>> trying to read from a freq counter for some ADEV measurements. Once
>> HYPERTRM runs, no other program can access the serial port.
> Good point, I tried TimeLab direclty after fresh reboots, but the
> interfaces are still invisible.
>
> "Jim Lux" <jimlux at earthlink.net>
>> One trick with Windows is to disable and then renable the serial port,
>> in particular, USB ports sometimes get stuck, and this fixes them.
>
>> There's also some power management things with USB connected ports that
>> can get things confused. (You don't want USB selective suspend enabled)
>
>> there's a command line tools that can do this, or you can use Device
>> Manager.
>> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272 describes devcon, which can do
>> all sorts of useful stuff.
> Tried the program from your link, but
>> wine devcon findall =ports
> was not able to find a port. Are you able to run it under Wine
> or only under windows?


devcon is a *windows* program, and I think (pretty sure, but I don't 
have a windows box here in front of me to check) has to be run with 
administrator privileges. (e.g. right click "run as adminstrator" kind 
of thing).

(minor windows rant.. I'm glad MS is tightening up security, but it 
makes life hard for people running on a minimal embedded system. I wish 
there was an easy way to say "it's' all running as root/administrator, 
stop asking for username/password".

No better on Linux, it just manifests itself as needing to have users in 
the right groups, and the permissions set up properly.  But on Linux, 
you can cheat and just always come in as root...)