Thread: SheevaPlug Wishlist

Oooo. Good stuff. I will try this later.

Gary

I built GPSD on my system but it doesn't recognize the device. Any suggestions? I switched over to Debian on the SD card to try to fix the FTDI problem.

I've added libftdi1 to my system and in reading some of the forums, they say that you can manually load the following module:

sudo modprobe ftdi_sio vendor=0x9e88 product=0x9e8f

However, I get:

FATAL: Could not load /lib/modules/2.6.22.18/modules.dep: No such file or directory

So I thought maybe I was missing ftdi_sio but when I do an aptitude search for ftdi_sio or try to install it, I get:

debian:~# apt-get install ftdi_sio
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package ftdi_sio

This seems to make sense because I'm running Debian not Ubuntu that came on the Sheeva. Therefore, ftdio_sio probably isn't a Debian package.


There is an alpha6 version of Ubuntu for the Sheeva that supposedly includes ftdi support, but I kind of like the full featured Debian install.
Any suggestions would be helpful!

Originally Posted by Bugbyte

It seems to:

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 067b:2303 Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

the PL2303 is probably your GPS receiver. is there a /dev/gps0 ? if so, run dpkg-reconfigure gpsd and set it up to use that device.

wait, you "built" gpsd? You didn't apt-get install it from the repo?

>What do you mean you built it?
Poor choice of words. I used apt-get install to download it from the repository.

The GPS is a Royaltek Saphire which is a standard GPS puck that is NMEA compliant and works with the Prolific drivers. When I plug it in, there are three devices that show up in the /dev folder. Here's a screen shot:


and I get the following:

debian:/dev# lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 067b:2303 Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

When I unplug it, here's what it looks like:



and I get the following:

debian:/dev# lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

So yeah, I think you're right about it being device number two. When I run the dpkg reconfigure command it suggests that the device should look like /dev/usb* or /dev/tty*, which is how it appears on the Mac when I plug it in (it shows up as cu.PL2303-1817 and also tty.PL2303-1817).

So what do I type into the gpsd reconfigure screen? There's four choices:
usbdev1.3_ep00
usbdev1.3_ep02
usbdev1.3_ep81
usbdev1.3_ep83

I guess I'll try them and report back but somehow this doesn't feel like the right answer.

[Edit: No joy. Trying to set the debug level using 'gpsd -D 2' yields an error message that tells me it can't run with neither socket or devices]

[Additional edit: I found a module called ftdi_sio.ko in /lib/modules/2.6.29-2-kirkwood/kernel/drivers/usb/serial but got the following when trying modprobe.
debian:/lib/modules/2.6.29-2-kirkwood/kernel/drivers/usb/serial# /sbin/modprobe ftdi_sio
FATAL: Could not load /lib/modules/2.6.22.18/modules.dep: No such file or directory
]

sounds like you need a udev rule. the gpsd package in ubuntu comes with udev rules for the prolific devices. I'm not sure if debian's does the same. Also, it's interesting that debian calls them usbdev1.x... You would think they'd be set up as /dev/ttyUSB* like in ubuntu...

When i get home, i'll paste the udev rule from my pc for you to try.

I've seen a couple posts about rules but was having a really hard time figuring out if they applied to my situation or not. I'll look into it.

They do apply to you, and yes they're a bit opaque to actually write. Luckily, trip's gotten pretty good at that :-)

Gary (-;

That's it. I'm officially fed up with Linux. I tried to like it but just getting a stupid serial port working has been a time sink from hell. I bought the plug to read serial devices. I've owned it for months and despite all my best efforts I've been unable to get it to work.

The last straw today is that I got fed up with trying to get Debian to work when it was supposed to work to begin with. I guess on the plus side I got to learn a whole lot about flashing and u-boot and serial terminals and all kinds of fun stuff that is also stupid.

So, I decided to upgrade the Nand to version 2.0.30.6 or whatever the hell the most recent version is because it is supposed to have ftdi support built in. I mean, why screw around with Debian when it isn't working? So I dutifully tracked down the instructions on how to upgrade the install, downloaded, adjusted bootargs, recorded them to flash and rebooted.

Sure enough, when I plugged in my GPS, in /dev I found a device called ttyUSB0. Unbelievable! But I cant get gpsd to run because the instructions are written by someone who's never used a GUI. I reconfigured the package, put the device in and....well...I guess it doesn't work. I don't know. Frankly, I've read the man pages and web page instructions 10,000 times and I don't think a 10,000 and 1st time is going to help. It just isn't working.

I'm glad I bought this paperweight.

Okay, I feel better now. Just had to rant some.

Here's my gps rules. Put this in /etc/udev/rules.d/40-gps.rules

Code:

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", KERNEL=="ttyUSB*", ATTRS{idVendor}=="067b", ATTRS{idProduct}=="2303", SYMLINK+="mygps"

How do you know it's not working without any UI? I always pass -n to gps and then watch dbus-monitor --system to see if it's exporting anything useful. You need the -n option in order to have gpsd export dbus messages without a socket connection.

btw, if you cat the device, you should see some data as well: cat /dev/mygps.

Note that it is possible your idVendor may be different. you may want to check lsusb -vv to make sure.