The usbserial stuff has been working so well for me in Ubuntu for a number of years that I have almost forgotten how to troubleshoot it. I just installed Chrubuntu, however, and now my usbserial is not just magically working.
Here's the info I think you will need:
uname -a
Linux ChrUbuntu 3.4.0 #1 SMP Sun Aug 26 19:17:55 EDT 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
I would normally expect to see the cp210x driver. (As I will show below, modprobe doesn't seem to load it.)
root@ChrUbuntu:/lib/modules/3.4.0/kernel/drivers/usb/serial# ls
option.ko pl2303.ko qcserial.ko sierra.ko usb_wwan.ko
lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 04ca:3006 Lite-On Technology Corp.
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 064e:d251 Suyin Corp.
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 10c4:ea60 Cygnal Integrated Products, Inc. CP210x Composite Device
dmesg
[ 649.111665] usb 2-1.3: new full-speed USB device number 3 using ehci_hcd
[ 649.199149] usb 2-1.3: New USB device found, idVendor=10c4, idProduct=ea60
[ 649.199161] usb 2-1.3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 649.199169] usb 2-1.3: Product: CP2103 USB to UART Bridge Controller
[ 649.199175] usb 2-1.3: Manufacturer: Silicon Labs
[ 649.199179] usb 2-1.3: SerialNumber: 0001
after disconnecting the device, one new line is logged in dmesg:
[ 2858.730137] usb 2-1.3: USB disconnect, device number 3
lsmod
Module Size Used by
fuse 59885 2
rfcomm 25259 0
snd_hda_codec_hdmi 29062 1
snd_hda_codec_realtek 49177 1
memconsole 12352 0
snd_hda_intel 24601 3
snd_hda_codec 71435 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep 12351 1 snd_hda_codec
ath9k 118119 0
uvcvideo 59368 0
videodev 81368 1 uvcvideo
snd_pcm 61468 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
videobuf2_core 25280 1 uvcvideo
videobuf2_vmalloc 12313 1 uvcvideo
videobuf2_memops 12475 1 videobuf2_vmalloc
mac80211 318094 1 ath9k
ath9k_common 12689 1 ath9k
ath9k_hw 351731 2 ath9k,ath9k_common
sdhci_pci 16409 0
sdhci 25037 1 sdhci_pci
ath 21105 3 ath9k,ath9k_common,ath9k_hw
mmc_core 71579 2 sdhci_pci,sdhci
btusb 16409 0
joydev 16409 0
nm10_gpio 12313 0
tg3 118809 0
snd_timer 21055 1 snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc 12757 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
bluetooth 143138 13 rfcomm,btusb
cfg80211 141223 3 ath9k,mac80211,ath
rtc_cmos 16409 0
Assuming the module I need for the CP210x driver is usbserial, I tried this:
root@ChrUbuntu:/# modprobe usbserial
root@ChrUbuntu:/#
root@ChrUbuntu:/# lsmod | grep usbserial
root@ChrUbuntu:/#
The expected /dev/ttyUSB0 is missing (both before and after trying modprobe usbserial):
root@ChrUbuntu:/dev# ls
agpgart ecryptfs loop4 port sda2 tpm0 tty19 tty30 tty42 tty54 tty9 vcs6
block fb0 loop5 ppp sda3 tty tty2 tty31 tty43 tty55 uinput vcs7
bsg fd loop6 ptmx sda4 tty0 tty20 tty32 tty44 tty56 urandom vcsa
bus full loop7 pts sda5 tty1 tty21 tty33 tty45 tty57 usbmon0 vcsa1
char fuse loop-control random sda6 tty10 tty22 tty34 tty46 tty58 usbmon1 vcsa2
chromeos-low-mem hpet mapper rfkill sda7 tty11 tty23 tty35 tty47 tty59 usbmon2 vcsa3
console input mcelog rtc sda8 tty12 tty24 tty36 tty48 tty6 v4l vcsa4
core kmsg mem rtc0 sda9 tty13 tty25 tty37 tty49 tty60 vcs vcsa5
cpu log net sda shm tty14 tty26 tty38 tty5 tty61 vcs1 vcsa6
cpu_dma_latency loop0 network_latency sda1 snd tty15 tty27 tty39 tty50 tty62 vcs2 vcsa7
disk loop1 network_throughput sda10 stderr tty16 tty28 tty4 tty51 tty63 vcs3 video0
dm-0 loop2 null sda11 stdin tty17 tty29 tty40 tty52 tty7 vcs4 zero
dri loop3 nvram sda12 stdout tty18 tty3 tty41 tty53 tty8 vcs5
I would normally use udev rules like this and I would use ttyUSB0 as my port for the device of interest now. Obviously, these won't work if ttyUSB* is missing, as it is now.
KERNEL=="ttyUSB[0-9]*", DRIVERS=="cp210x", ATTRS{interface}=="CP2103 USB to UART Bridge Controller", MODE="0666", NAME:="ttyUSB0"
KERNEL=="ttyUSB[0-9]*", DRIVERS=="pl2303", SUBSYSTEMS=="usb-serial", MODE="0666", NAME:="ttyUSB1"
The solution apparently is to build kernel modules usbserial.ko and cp210x.ko. However, ChrUbuntu is based on Ubuntu 12.04 but with kernel 3.4. I can't seem to figure out all the variables required to build the modules in ChrUbuntu.
Best Answer
The lack of the
cp210x.ko
andusbserial.ko
kernel modules in the directory:would seem to indicate that the kernels provided with the ChrUbuntu releases were built not having these features enabled at compile time.
Comparing the output that's provided in the question by the OP against Ubuntu 12.10 would seem to back this up:
ChrUbuntu
Ubuntu 12.10
Given this you'll need to build the
cp210x.ko
kernel module from source and then install it manually.See this Unix & Linux Q&A titled: Ubuntu make fails with No such file or directory /lib/modules/3.4.0/build, for details on how to accomplish this task.