PinePhone UART

[bobbbob]

How would I connect to the PinePhone's serial console from linux?  I have the USB to headphone jack converter, and killswitch 6 is flipped off, but I'm a bit lost on where to go from there.

[hnaguski]

How would I connect to the PinePhone's serial console from linux? I have the USB to headphone jack converter, and killswitch 6 is flipped off, but I'm a bit lost on where to go from there.

Personally, I use minicom, a pretty easy to use serial communication program. The steps I went through are as follows.

1. Install minicom. On Debian it looks like this:
   
   
   Code:

   sudo apt install minicom
   
   If you're on another distro it should be a very similar command
   
   
2. Add your user to the dialout group
   This step is so that you have access to the serial console without root, run
   
   Code:

   sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER
   Then logout and log back in for this to take effect
   
   
3. Plug in your serial cable
   
   Plug in both ends and then run
   
   Code:

   sudo dmesg
   it should say something similar to
   
   Code:

   ch341-uart converter now attached to ttyUSB0
   near the bottom of the output. This means that the adapter was recognized and assigned to a tty. pay attention to the ttyUSB0 part, you use it next.
   
   
4. Start minicom
   Start minicom with
   
   Code:

   minicom -s -D /dev/ttyUSBx
   but replace the x with whatever you got in the last step. (if you got 'ttyUSB0' then enter that, 'ttyUSB1' enter that etc...)
   You should be greeted with minicom's main menu. From here navigate to 'Serial port setup' and hit enter. Next press E and make sure that you set the speed to 115200, parity to none, and data to 8. Once that's set, hit enter to save it and then change 'Hardware Flow Control' to No. Now you can leave that menu and go to 'Exit'. It should take you to the terminal screen that you'll use to interact with the adapter.
   
   
5. Enjoy!
   Now would be a good time to turn on the phone and you should see a bunch of text come up in minicom, that's the pinephone's boot process!. Depending on what OS you have installed (ie postmarketOS) it may drop you into a login screen where you can login and get access to a shell on the phone.
   
   

If any of this was confusing or isn't working let me know and I'll try my best to help you out.

[wibble]

You'll need a serial terminal application such as minicom, cutecom, gkermit, gtkterm etc. to interact with it. Connect to whatever the usb serial device appears as - probably /dev/ttyACM0 or /dev/ttyUSB0. Many of the USB serial devices auto-sense the connection parameters, but you might need to enter them manually. Mine should arrive in a few hours so I might be able to offer more detail after that if you're still having trouble.

Edit: connection details in the postmarketOS wiki

[z4v4l]

if that is the same infamous adapter as for Pinebook Pro, then don't use it! it has wrong voltage (5V instead of 3.3), look in the PBP forum for details.

[ksmithaz1]

I could not get it to work at all. Not sure i have the right ttl levels. This is kinda goofy, as rs-232c is +-18v, bastardized down to +-12v on a pc. You can generally get away with +-5v on a short cable. Now I'm thinking this thing might be +3-0v straight ttl. Debating getting the o-scope from the attic, but I'm lazy. I've got an rpi cable, I should prolly put a meter on it, at least..

Finally, when the dip is thrown for serial, and I had a sim in the wifi refused to work. As it is the wifi is flakey, the usb-c will not take a kb, and I'm not up for much on the soft kb's, my fingy's are fat. It's all pretty close, we may just need to be patient while the various hardware drivers are cleaned up. I use ckermit on the linboxen for this type stuff. Nice and easy to send files old school.

[bobbbob]

snip

Yep, this worked perfectly. Thanks!

---

if that is the same infamous adapter as for Pinebook Pro, then don't use it! it has wrong voltage (5V instead of 3.3), look in the PBP forum for details.

I'm not using the one from the store, I used one from Amazon. In case someone wants to know which one, it's this . I hooked some wires from it to this.

[hnaguski]

Yep, this worked perfectly. Thanks!

Great, good luck in your endeavors!