Hey All,
We've identified several bugs in the version of the USB serial modules
with the 2.4.26 kernel that's distributed with the TS-72xx boards.
Many USB devices like GPS receivers, serial port converters, web cams,
and so on, use one of several USB-serial "bridge" chips that make the
USB device look like a serial port (tty) device to the linux kernel -
usually on device /dev/ttyUSBx or /dev/usb/tts/x.
These bugs manifest as kernel panics when attempting to communicate
with the device or close it. There are several messages on this board
over the last few months that may be explained by these bugs.
There are errors in 'usbserial.o' (used by all the USB serial chips)
and the driver for the Prolific PL-2303, 'pl2303.o', which is a common<
b
r style="line-height: 1.22em; ">chip. There may be problems with other related drivers, but this is
the only one we're using.
Many of the bugs were fixed by the 2.4.28 kernel, and the drivers
appear to be compatible with 2.4.26. Newer drivers aren't directly
compatible.
So to fix, I simply copied all of the source files (.h, .c, and .S) in
the "drivers/usb/serial" directory from the standard 2.4.28 kernel
into the TS linux source distribution and rebuilt the kernel modules.
To confuse matters slightly, the very latest PL-2303 module, itself,
is comp
a
tible with this modified source directory, so you can also
copy the pl2303.c and pl2303.h from Linux 2.4.36.2 to get any
additional fixes and chip support that the new drivers offers.
So far, so good.
Let me know if anyone else has been looking into these issues.
Frank Pagliughi