Connect to a USB Serial Connection

In order to connect to a USB Serial connection as is the case in connecting to Snapdragon Flight, there's slightly different ways for each host operating system. I broke this up to a separate blog post to provide easy reference for any other project. I'd note that these instructions work equally well on Intel's Edison boards which also require USB Serial connections.

If you're trying to connect from windows, here's some steps for you:

  1. Run putty
  2. Now configure Putty as follows:
    1. Click Serial under Connection Type
    2. In the Serial line field, enter the COM# for your board, such as COM12.
      NB: If you did not identify your COM# when setting up your board, navigate to the Device Manager and check for an entry called USB Serial Port (not Intel Edison Virtual Com Port). The COM# is displayed next to the USB Serial Port entry, as highlighted below.
    3. Give the Speed field a baud rate that seems appropriate: 115200
    4. Your configuration screen should look like this:
  3. Click open and skip to the common section below on how to get to the prompt.

If you're trying to connect from OSX here's your instructions:

  1. Open Terminal
  2. Figure out what the USB Serial address is: ls /dev/cu.usbserial-*
  3. open with the screen command: screen -L /dev/cu.usbserial-xxx 115200
    • Note that xxx in the above line should be replaced by the output of the first command
    • The -L in the screen command lets you see the output of any commands you type in the screen. 115200 is the baud rate.
    • Hit ctl-A and then ctl-K to kill the session when you're done
  4. Skip to the common section below on how to get to the prompt.

If you're tyring to connect from Linux, the instructions are similar to OSX:

  1. Install screen if it's not already installed (sudo apt-get install screen)
  2. Figure out what the USB Serial address is: ls /dev/ttyUSB*
  3. open with the screen command: sudo screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200
    • 115200 is the buad rate.
  4. Skip to the common section below on how to get to the prompt.

Common section: at this point, you have a connection and might be looking at a blank screen. All you have to do in all three platforms, is hit enter. You will then be connected to Snapdragon Flight as the root user.

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