User's Guide

SPEED Serial Adaptors User guide
Installing under Linux
Page 66
Chapter 2 Installing drivers and host cards
Installing drivers onto your system
To install the device driver proceed as follows:
Using the kernel
patch file
1. Make sure you have an up to date Linux kernel source directory installed. This can be
obtained from ftp://ftp.linux.org or other major Linux web sites, along with instructions
on how to install and build.
2. Copy the driver patch file onto your system in a temporary directory. For example, /tmp.
The patch file will be named
speed.patch-<driver vers>-<kernel vers>.gz
For example, speed.patch-6-2.2.13.gz
3. At the command prompt, uncompress the driver patch file by typing
gunzip /tmp speed.patch-6-2.2.13.gz and pressing the Enter key.
4. At the command prompt, change directory to the kernel source directory by typing
cd /usr/src/linux and pressing the Enter key.
5. At the command prompt, apply the kernel patch by typing
patch -p1 </tmp/speed.patch-6-2.2.13.gz and pressing the Enter key.
Enabling the driver 6. Enable the driver using the make config or make xconfig kernel utility. The SPEED
driver appears in the Character devices section and is labelled SPEED system
support. Set this to m for modules
7. Within either the make config or the make xconfig kernel utility, set the
Support more than 4 serial ports and Support special multiport boards options to Y
and enable Support for sharing serial interrupts.
8. Now rebuild and install the kernel and modules. See your Linux distribution documentation
on how to rebuild and install a new kernel and modules. We recommend reading the Kernel-
HOWTO available in /usr/doc/HOWTO.
Note
When installing SPEED drivers under Linux versions 2.2.x, you will need to apply a patch file
to the kernel before enabling the drivers (step 6. of this procedure).
You can find a kernel patch file on either of the following;
• The CDROM (in the /drivers/speed/linux directory) supplied with your Perle product.
• The Perle website http://www.perle.com.
As of Linux version 2.4.x, you do not need to apply a patch on this or later kernels, you can
proceed straight to enabling the driver using step 6. of this procedure.