ilper 1.35.2 on Linux

[grsbanks]

Interesting problem that I've not yet been able to figure out the reason for.

So, I have ilper in both Windows and Linux flavours. The Windows version works just fine, no worries there. It's the Linux version that's making me pull my hair out, what little I have left.

It built fine but when I fire it up and hit "a" to get it to connect to the serial port and the PILbox connected to it, I always get "Error No response from PILBO" (the "X" is missing).

The FTDI driver is installed and the PILbox regognised, as evidenced by the output of dmesg:

Code:

[   99.341855] usb 1-10: new full-speed USB device number 9 using xhci_hcd
[   99.494533] usb 1-10: New USB device found, idVendor=0403, idProduct=6001, bcdDevice= 6.00
[   99.494538] usb 1-10: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[   99.494542] usb 1-10: Product: UB232R
[   99.494545] usb 1-10: Manufacturer: FTDI
[   99.494547] usb 1-10: SerialNumber: A12TVCUQ
[   99.515111] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
[   99.515118] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for generic
[   99.519023] usbcore: registered new interface driver ftdi_sio
[   99.519031] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for FTDI USB Serial Device
[   99.519110] ftdi_sio 1-10:1.0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter detected
[   99.519205] usb 1-10: Detected FT232RL
[   99.519610] usb 1-10: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0

The device is there and set up with the relevant permissions etc:

Code:

$ ls -ls /dev/ttyUSB0
0 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 0 Nov 17 17:23 /dev/ttyUSB0

Owner is root, group is dialout with r/w permissions granted to the group.

I belong to that group:

Code:

$ id
uid=1000(godwin) gid=1000(godwin) groups=1000(godwin),4(adm),20(dialout),24(cdrom),27(sudo),30(dip),46(plugde​v),120(lpadmin),131(lxd),132(sambashare),133(docker)

The cable is fine. I've flashed several SwissMicros voyagers using it.

Does anyone have any ideas what could be going on here?

[Sylvain Cote]

Could be a DTR issue.
As far as I remember, by default, DTR is high on Linux but low on Windows.
Try running gtkterm, hit F7 to toggle DTR low, then close gtkterm and retry to communicate with the PILBox.
Sylvain

[grsbanks]

(11-17-2020 06:16 PM)Sylvain Cote Wrote:  Try running gtkterm, hit F7 to toggle DTR low, then close gtkterm and retry to communicate with the PILBox.

Thanks for the pointer but unfortunately, that doesn't solve it.

DTR is indeed high but if I lower it, exit gtkterm and then start ilper and attempt to connect, I still get "No response from PILbox".

If I run gtkterm, lower DTR, exit gtkterm and start gtkterm again having done nothing else, DTR is high again.

[J-F Garnier]

I have no experience with Linux, but I would first suspect a problem with the com speed.
The ILPer Windows version automatically detects the right speed, I'm not sure if the older Linux version does.

The PIL-Box, by default, is configured at 115 kbps (JP2 present), and can be changed to 230 kbps with JP2 removed.

J-F

[Dave Frederickson]

pyILPER runs on Linux, too, and it has more features than ILPer.

[grsbanks]

Thanks all for the feedback.

For now I'm going to have to resign myself to it being Windows-only. I really don't want to have to pull down half the internet and install graphics libraries that I have no use for other than this and, despite currently being furloughed, I don't have time to look at the source code at the moment.

The up-shot of this is that it's forced me to take a closer look at an issue that I was having with the Windows version and had forgotten about.

I could write to a file on an emulated drive up to a certain point, but then the process would bail out with a "Medium error". Just to make sure it wasn't a problem with the PilBox, I switched from my HP-71B to Emu71 and guess what... I was still getting the medium errors.

It turns out that ILPer doesn't play ball with Google Backup & Sync (formerly Google Drive). When GB&S picks up on the fact that the image file has changed and tries to back it up, ILPer is no longer able to access the file. My image files were in a folder that is synced by GB&S.

This is probably a fairly simple change to the ILPer source code that should allow it to open the file with the appropriate file share permissions. I'll look at that at some point and probably send in a patch. But for now, don't put your LIF files in a folder that's synced by GB&S! (or presumably OneDrive, I've not tested that).

EDIT: I also got the Windows version of ILPer working under WINE

[Sylvain Cote]

Oh! I thought that you were talking about pyILPER, then I second Dave suggestion to try it.
You need to install the following ...

• Anaconda Package Manager (conda)
• Logical Interchange File Utilities (lifutils)
• Python IL Peripherals (pyILPER)
  

Sylvain

[grsbanks]

Thanks but I got everything working that I wanted to without having to install anything extra.

EDIT: Even Emu71 seems to work in WINE!

[grsbanks]

Patch just submitted to Christoph Gießelink.