Serial Ports, is it supported on MAC & Linux ??

Hey all...
After a long process of doing an application that runs a serial port connection to a server and upload a file to it, i could'nt find the comm package that i could download for both MAC and Linux.... There is one for Windows and Solaris though... So i was wondering, is serial ports not supported by MAC and Linux. And if not, what other than the comm package can i use to have serial ports on those 2 platforms .......
Thanks

Yes, there is third party support for linux and MacOS-X. It's released under GPL and can be found here -> http://www.rxtx.org/

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Sending File Over Serial PORT

Hi,
I'm able to read/write data over serial port using Java Comm APIs in Linux.
Can anybody please tell me how to write/read a file over Serial port?
Is it similar to sending a file over network?
An early response is appreciated...

Same stream I/O as used over the port works from a file. Dead simple.
Also dead slow. If you want to do large amounts of data, use a RandomAccessFile and read a big chunk at a time into a byte array. Then send the byte array.

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How do I connect two components (A LCD Display and a Battery Charger) to a single serial port on a SBRIO 9642?

Depending on the nature of your two serial devices, you may be able to use a serial port combiner or switch like these devices from B&B electronics:
Serial Port Combiners: Good for intermittent data sources, but Tx data from the host is broadcast to both devices, which may cause undesired behavior in your device if the devices share any common or similar commands.
Serial Port Switches: More flexible for communicating with multiple devices because the Tx data is sent only to the desired device. The downside is any LabVIEW instrument driver you may be using will have to be modified to account for the extra "addressing" commands the switch uses to determine which device you want to talk to.
This is the only way I know to communicate with two devices using only one serial port. One downside of both approaches is they limit the bandwidth available because only one device can communicate with the Single-Board RIO at any time. If one device communicates often or continuously and the other is an intermittent device, you may have trouble getting the intermittent data through the switch or combiner because the first device to communicate gains access and blocks the other port until the communication is complete.
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RS-232 C series module: The NI 9870E module adds 4 RS232 ports to Single-Board RIO. Downside, added cost and size of Single-Board RIO system, and the serial ports are not supported through VISA, so an RT interface layer and driver must be written in LabVIEW FPGA.
Most difficult work, but lowest cost option, Emulate RS232 port in LabVIEW FPGA: Depending on your devices, you may need to add an RS232 transceiver to the front end of your FPGA DIO lines to make this option work, but many devices can work with an "RS232 TTL" level signals. This would be very low cost, but again this option does not provide VISA API support, so any instrument drivers you may have would need to be ported to your custom FPGA-232 driver API.
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Cheers,
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Porting VIs to Linux, serial port support

hello,
I have installed LabVIEW 7 Express on
Mandriva Linux
Porting VIs Sources works well
I had some VIs under Windows using the PC
Serial Port, under LabVIEW 5, using the NI serpdrv file.
Until now, unable to make run the Serial Ports
in the Linux Version of LabVIEW....................
any hints ?

Hi trallala-
Read the following KnowledgeBase articles and reply if they do not help resolve your problems.
Troubleshooting Serial Communication in Linux
How Do I Access The Serial Ports of My Linux Machine Without Admin Privileges?
What Linux Distributions do National Instruments' Drivers and Software Support?
Hope this helps!
Drew Pierce | District Manager, Central Texas | National Instruments

Lack of Mac & Linux Support Hurting Javafx 2.0 Early Adoption and traction.

Lack of Mac & Linux Support Hurting Javafx 2.0 Early Adoption and traction.
Oracle needs to come out with a Mac & Linux Beta built, or let developers know the real story behind Mac OS and Javafx 2.0.

I too would like to at least be able to try the Mac/Linux ports, even knowing that they are behind the Windows version. But just knowing that Oracle is committed to them is enough to ease any nervous feeling that I'm choosing the wrong tech.
I have no problems with the fact that Oracle is concentrating on Windows first. It makes sense. If you have to pick one platform to focus on while you are getting the kinks out, it makes sense for it to be the most popular platform. That's Windows. But there mustn't be too long of a wait for the others. (E.g. if they were in a public beta stage when the Windows version is at final release, that would help boost confidence in the platform.)
So long as they don't make the same mistakes that were made with Swing, where there are too many assumptions that all platforms work the same - so things like Mac's screen menu bar had to be fit in after the fact by Apple using awkward hacks. (I notice that now even popular Linux distros (Ubuntu) are using the screen menu bar concept, though they have managed to fit that into the window manager in such a way that it didn't seem to cause much problems.)

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Sorry for this slightly off-topic subject, but I don't felt like adding the topic under the Apple Printer Forum.
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I did some investigating and it seems that there is an alternative between (a) using the printers on a Mac running Classic OS; or (b) using GimpPrint, an adapter Parallel-USB, etc.
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I would be grateful for your help and advice, both in terms of finance and hardware. Thank you!
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<a href-"http://cgi.ebay.com/5-Pack-of-PhoneNet-LocalTalk-Adapters_W0QQitemZ300016 248683QQihZ020QQcategoryZ51046QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohos ting">Old Farallon adapter
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A winter windstorm woke me at 3AM so, if any of this looks like gibberish, you know why!
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[Linux] Serial Ports

Hi,
are the PC Com1 & Com2
serial Ports still supported
under LV Linux version ?
I dont find the Serial Port VIs anymore ?
The idea was to move a LV .vi from WinX to Linux.............
any experiences ?

In both Windows and Linux, you are supposed to use the VISA functions. It's almost the same, and there is a compatibility menu, with wrapper VI's that simulate the old functions. I'm currently developing an application in windows (old habbits die hard), and I'm running it under Linux without any serial problems.
Regards,
Wiebe.

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I fixed it. It turns out that the Leopard -> Snow Leopard Migration screwed up the Subversion repository various credentials for user/group and other during the migration copy. Fortunately I had "cloned" my entire Leopard disk. I copied the cloned repository into the Snow Leopard disk and everything works. It looks like this was the fault of the Apple Migration process.

Problem communicating via serial port in Linux

Hello,
I am trying to transfer data via serial port, in Linux.
But it is impossible till now!
I get Runtime exception.
Here is my code:
public class Main {
    public Main() {
    int num=5;
    int[] array = new int[5];
    public static void main(String args[]) {
        java.awt.EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            public void run() {
                array[0]=1;
                array[1]=2;
                array[2]=3;
                array[3]=4;
                array[4]=5;
                new ParallelCommunication(num,array);
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
import javax.comm.*; // for SUN's serial/parallel port libraries
//import gnu.io.*; // for rxtxSerial library
public class ParallelCommunication implements Runnable, SerialPortEventListener {
   static CommPortIdentifier portId;
   static CommPortIdentifier saveportId;
   static Enumeration portList;
   InputStream inputStream;
   SerialPort serialPort;
   Thread readThread;
   static OutputStream outputStream;
   static boolean outputBufferEmptyFlag = false;
   int num;
   int[] array;
   public ParallelCommunication(int this_num,int[] this_array) {
      boolean portFound = false;
      String defaultPort;
      num = this_num;
     array=new int[this_array.length];
      array = this_array;
      // determine the name of the serial port on several operating systems
      String osname = System.getProperty("os.name","").toLowerCase();
      if ( osname.startsWith("windows") ) {
         // windows
         defaultPort = "COM1";
      } else if (osname.startsWith("linux")) {
         // linux
        defaultPort = "/dev/ttyS0";
      } else {
         System.out.println("Sorry, your operating system is not supported");
         return;
//      if (args.length > 0) {
//         defaultPort = args[0];
      System.out.println("Set default port to "+defaultPort);
      // parse ports and if the default port is found, initialized the reader
      portList = CommPortIdentifier.getPortIdentifiers();
      while (portList.hasMoreElements()) {
         portId = (CommPortIdentifier) portList.nextElement();
         if (portId.getPortType() == CommPortIdentifier.PORT_SERIAL) {
            if (portId.getName().equals(defaultPort)) {
               System.out.println("Found port: "+defaultPort);
               portFound = true;
               // init reader thread
               initialize();
               break;
      if (!portFound) {
         System.out.println("port " + defaultPort + " not found.");
   public void initwritetoport() {
      // initwritetoport() assumes that the port has already been opened and
      //    initialized by "public void initialize()"
      try {
         // get the outputstream
         outputStream = serialPort.getOutputStream();
      } catch (IOException e) {}
      try {
         // activate the OUTPUT_BUFFER_EMPTY notifier
         serialPort.notifyOnOutputEmpty(true);
      } catch (Exception e) {
         System.out.println("Error setting event notification");
         System.out.println(e.toString());
         System.exit(-1);
   public void writetoport(int counter) {
      try {
         // write string to serial port
         outputStream.write(String.valueOf(array[counter]).getBytes());
      } catch (IOException e) {}
   public void initialize() {
      // initalize serial port
      try {
         serialPort = (SerialPort) portId.open("SimpleReadApp", 2000);
      } catch (PortInUseException e) {System.out.println("Port In Use.");} //******Here is the Exception******
      try {
         inputStream = serialPort.getInputStream();
      } catch (IOException e) {}
      try {
         serialPort.addEventListener(this);
      } catch (TooManyListenersException e) {}
      // activate the DATA_AVAILABLE notifier
      serialPort.notifyOnDataAvailable(true);
      try {
         // set port parameters
         serialPort.setSerialPortParams(9600, SerialPort.DATABITS_8,
                     SerialPort.STOPBITS_1,
                     SerialPort.PARITY_NONE);
      } catch (UnsupportedCommOperationException e) {}
      // start the read thread
      readThread = new Thread(this);
      readThread.start();
   public void run() {
      // first thing in the thread, we initialize the write operation
     initwritetoport();
     for(int i=0; i<=num_of_inputs; i++) {
        // write string to port, the serialEvent will read it
        writetoport(i);
     serialPort.close();
   public void serialEvent(SerialPortEvent event) {
      switch (event.getEventType()) {
      case SerialPortEvent.BI:
      case SerialPortEvent.OE:
      case SerialPortEvent.FE:
      case SerialPortEvent.PE:
      case SerialPortEvent.CD:
      case SerialPortEvent.CTS:
      case SerialPortEvent.DSR:
      case SerialPortEvent.RI:
      case SerialPortEvent.OUTPUT_BUFFER_EMPTY:
         break;
      case SerialPortEvent.DATA_AVAILABLE:
         // we get here if data has been received
         byte[] readBuffer = new byte[20];
         try {
            // read data
            while (inputStream.available() > 0) {
               int numBytes = inputStream.read(readBuffer);
            // print data
            String result = new String(readBuffer);
            System.out.println("Read: "+result);
         } catch (IOException e) {}
         break;
}...and the outcome is :
Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.RuntimeException:
Error opening "/dev/ttyS0"
tcgetattr(): Input/output error
at com.sun.comm.LinuxDriver.getCommPort(LinuxDriver.java:66)
at javax.comm.CommPortIdentifier.open(CommPortIdentifier.java:369)
at ParallelCommunication.initialize(ParallelCommunication.java:128)
I have searched a lot and I couldn't find a solution.
Thank you.

I'm having the same problem this helped somewhat debug the problem
http://bloggerdigest.blogspot.com/2006/11/linux-serial-com-port-diagnostic-test.html
I'm running Suse 10.3 and apparently it does not recognize my serial ports. So before
you can test your Java code you have to figure out how to make linux see the ports.
If I find a solution I'll let you know but if you find one first let me know. Thanks.

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I was told that this is not supported by NI. Can this be done using register level programming or some other method. The reason for serial communication is due to the distance requirement of roughly 300 feet. The mac RS-422 serial interface is cabable of this. Is there another solution out there Using a mac and an SCXI chassis over long distances. Remotely talking(wireless or ethernet) to a local computer near the experiment and using a DAQ Card interface to the SCXI chassis is not ideal solution.

Unfortunately, to communicate with an SCXI chassis via Serial port on the Macintosh would require that a driver for the SCXI 1200 and SCXI 2000 chassis be written. To write such a driver would not only require register level programming, but a thorough understanding of the SCXI hardware, some of which information might not be available in manuals and such. Because of this I don't think it would be feasible to use the SCXI 2000 chassis on a Mac.
I tried to think of other approaches, but the only alternatives I could think of were to use a Windows Machine with the SCXI 2000 or to put one Mac near the equipment, as you mentioned previously.

I am trying to authenticate at Filevault preboot using external Serial (RS232) to USB convertor where USB port is connected to my mac machine.But on preboot I am not able to type the password using console where my machine is connected.

I am using an external keyboard which is actually a Device KeyAT who do the keyboard simulator kind of operation over Serial (RS232) to USB connector.
I have a controller machine connected with Serial Port and MAC machine is connected by a USB port to that device.
I am able to type the password on OS X login screen but on using the same device and set up on Filevault preboot I am not able to type the password.
This connector is detected as a USB 2.0 composite device in System Hardware table.
Can someone hints or point out a potential cause or to rectify this issue.
Thanks in Advance.

Which os version are you using?
Which iPod Nano model do you have? iPod Models
iPod not recognized in iTunes and Mac desktop

KM2M serial port not working in Linux

I noticed a few Linux postings so I thought I'd give this a shot. I'm running Fedora Core and for some strange reason I can't seem to send any communications out to the ttyS0 (COM 1) or ttyS1 (COM 2) ports.
Does anyone have any suggestions on making it work?
Thank you.

No, your code had no termination characters at all - automatic or not. The enable termination character for the VISA Configure Serial Port is only for reads. Just like the help explains.
And while you should check the download page for updates, LabVIEW comes with the 34401 driver.
Message Edited by Dennis Knutson on 12-19-2009 05:49 PM

I have mid 2009 Mac Book Pro running 10.9.1. The hdmi mini port no longer supports sound on the Sony TV. This is apparently a change. It no longer shows as an option in system preferences/sound.Any ideas?

I have mid 2009 Mac Book Pro running 10.9.1. The hdmi mini port no longer supports sound on the Sony TV. This is apparently a change. It no longer shows as an option in system preferences/sound.Any ideas?

The 2009's didn't support sound on HDMI. That came in 2010. Are you sure it ever worked?

USB to Serial port adapter - Mac thinks it's a modem

I’m trying to connect my Mac’s USB port to a Sony Beta SP recorder's Serial Port using a generic USB to Serial adapter which uses the Prolific PL-2303 chip.
I’m using the latest Prolific Universal driver, but when I plug in the USB cable I get a message that a ‘new network device has been detected’ and suggesting that I use System Preferences to set it up. But in System Preferences it seems to think the USB to Serial adapter is a modem and is looking for a phone number and other configuration data.
Does anyone know how to get it to work as just a serial communication device to my Sony’s serial port? If I get it working I'll be connecting it to an RS232 to RS422 adapter to talk to the Sony port.
Thanks.

Thanks Andy.
I'll have a go again. It was late last night when I was trying to set it up, so maybe a fresh brain will have more success. I did try to 'Cancel' the network preference window that opened, but got the impression that it would not work unless I did 'something'. Someone else told me I could cancel that message permanently within System Preferences, so I'll try that too. Yet another bit of advice I got was that I would have to install 'MacPorts' and run something called 'Minicom' to set up the serial parameters. Windows was so simple by comparison
As a non-techie (at least in all these software and protocol issues) I'm more than a little confused.
Regards
Message was edited by: esmonde

Com,unicting on Serial Port using RXTX on Mac System!

Hi,
I have written an application which acts as an interface between the GPS device and Mac System. I have used rxtx api for communicating on Serial Port. The communication works well for some time. This device gives NMEA output and its proprietory sentences as output too. It is a GPS data Logger. I have to pass different commands for communicating. For instance for login purpose I have to pass the command $PLSC,231,1*FF. And on passing this command the device stops giving NMEA sentences. And responds back with $PLSR,231,1,1,00000000,GPSLOG*33. Sometimes this output and NMEA output both gets mixed up such as $PLS,$GPRMC,00000GPS,,,,.
The devices windows application which is not developed in Java works fine. Is it the problem with Serial API or some other issue. The device operates at 4800 baud rate.
Can anyone over here help me out?
Thanks & Regards
Sunil

This is just a shot in the dark.
Try right-clicking on the VISA write and select "do I/O syncronously".
If this works, please let me know. I have been trying to figure a good reason to do serial I/O "syncronously" but was not able to come up with one until I read your question.
Curious,
Ben
Ben Rayner
I am currently active on.. MainStream Preppers
Rayner's Ridge is under construction

Serial Ports, is it supported on MAC & Linux ??

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