pl2303 lockups on rpi2

[Hal Murray]

fbsd at www.zefox.net said:
> Yes, FTDI seems to be the most common alternative. Do you think it an
> improvement?  

>From the OS side, I expect they are mostly the same.  There is a USB spec for 
serial interface chips.

They don't cost much.  If you are going to play with USB on bleeding edge OS 
software, you should have one or several just for times like this.


> The man page for uplcom does not list pl2303ta, stopping at pl2303hx. The hx
> version  is now EOL, superseded by the ta version. 

I'd expect the chip designers were careful to make sure that old drivers and 
new chips would work together as long as you didn't expect support for any 
new features.

You could try plugging your USB gear into a PC running FreeBSD.
 


fbsd at www.zefox.net said:
> I wonder if slowing the RPi2 consoles down would make the problems go away,
> at least until the driver is updated. It seems unlikely, given that the
> lockup is on the USB side. 

The Linux geeks have figured out how to use the "console" as a serial port.  
It's used by the GPS HATs.  If you are trying to get work done rather than 
debug USB stuff, that might be an interesting approach.  You would need a 
level shifter if you are talking to a real RS232 device.

Google for >RS232 HAT< gets several hits.  I didn't look more than that.  
Some support multiple serial ports.  Using the extras probably requires 
getting the OS to configure the IO pins and setup the appropriate new IO 
devices.  The first one (aka console) probably works without much work.  All 
you get is RX and TX.  The modem control signals will require extra work.


-- 
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