View source for Using minicom to connect to Elphel393 camera

Elphel393 series cameras have built-in USB to serial converter which allows users to get access to serial console. You need microUSB-USB cable to connect a camera to your PC and a terminal software installed on the PC. We use minicom on Kubuntu for this purpose so this short note will describe how to connect to a camera using minicom.

First, you need to install minicom on the PC if have not done it before. Open a terminal on your PC and use the following command on Debian based systems like Ubuntu or Kubuntu:

 ~$sudo apt-get install minicom

or do the same with your preferred package manager.
minicom connects to a camera via /dev/ttyUSB0 device which is in ''dialout'' group by default:

 ~$ ls -l /dev/ttyUSB0 
 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 0 May 14 14:26 /dev/ttyUSB0

You should add your user to ''dialout'' group to make it easier to connect to camera without root permissions:

 ~$ sudo adduser elphel dialout
 [sudo] password for elphel: 
 Adding user `elphel' to group `dialout' ...
 Adding user elphel to group dialout
 Done.

Now user ''elphel'' is in group ''dialout'',

 $ cat /etc/group | grep dialout
 dialout:x:20:elphel

but new settings have not been applyed yet:

 ~$ groups
 elphel adm sudo lpadmin sambashare libvirtd

You need to logout from the system and login again. Now your user is added to the group and new settings are applied:

 ~$ groups
 elphel adm dialout sudo lpadmin sambashare libvirtd

The last step is minicom configuration. minicom tries to connect to a device which is specified in its configuration file /etc/minicom/minrc.dfl and this device is not what we are trying to connect to. If you start minicom with its default config file you will get an error:

 ~$ minicom -c on
 minicom: cannot open /dev/tty8: Permission denied

It should be started in setup mode with root permissions:

 ~$ sudo minicom -s

Go to 'Serial port setup',
 change 'Serial Device'(A) to /dev/ttyUSB0,
 turn off 'Hardware Flow Control'(F), 
 leave default 'Bps/Par/Bits' (E) at 115200 8N1
 and 'Save setup as dfl' in the higher menu.
Now you can start minicom

 ~$ minicom -c on

and it will connect to a camera.