Serial Cable Or Usb Serial Connection?

[MadDog]

I've just got the USB serial thing working on my windowsXP PC. Cool i thought, i'm playing with my GP2x via bash in HyperTerminal. So I tried to run a gpe from bash and it did not work. Which makes me think why use the USB method? I want this connection to see debug spew from my apps but if I can't fire them up i'm a bit stuck. Sorry if there is a simple Linux way of doing this, bit dumb when it comes to Linux.

I have the bits to make a serial cable that connects to the EXT port, an old serial mouse is donating its cable, should work well. Is this a better route for coders? will it connect and run without having to ran a script and so leaving the gp2x menu free to fire up my apps?


Thanks,
Richard e Collins.

 

[theoddbot]

It works just fine. What are your commands/errors?

 

[PokeParadox]

It just sounds you are not used to navigating in linux (I'm more used to DOS, but I know enough to get me by in linux.)

Just let us know what you are typing.

 

[aapje89]

Workes fine for me

btw. to lauch a gpe type "./<name_of_gpe>"
Whilst in the dir containing the gpe of course.

 

[woogal]

If you're trying to run an app by doing something like /mnt/sd/appname.gpe then a lot of the time it won't work. A lot of apps assume you're running them whilst in their folder (which the menu does) and then they try to find data files based on that fact. Calling an app with /mnt/sd/appname.gpe means you're not in the same folder and so it won't be able to find it's files. Use 'cd /mnt/sd/path/to/app' followed by './appname.gpe' and it will always work.

 

[nickspoon]

The only advantage of having a serial cable is being able to see the startup log. That and a serial firmware loader.

 

[MadDog]

Ah adding ./ before tha app name worked guys, thanks. Is this a linux thing or because i'm connecting via another computer? HyperTerminal seems a bit poor, sometimes it adds character from a previous comand to the one I just typed. Anything better than HyperTerminal?


Thanks,
Richard e Collins

 

[nickspoon]

Tera Term Pro is free and much better than Hyperterminal.

The ./ is a Linux thing.

 

[Squidge]

The "./" just means "current directory". If you want, you can add "./" to your search path so you don't need to type it, but it's considered dangerous, so isn't added to your path by default. (For example, if you typed "ls" to get a directory listing, and there just happened to be an executable in the current directory called "ls", then that would be run instead of the one you meant to run - hence why it's considered dangerous).

 

[jokeman]

can i use the serial cable for anything other than the console? connecting devices?

 

[synkro]

on some apps the menu seems to run in the background and the gfx starts to flocker. how to prevent that?

 

[Squidge]

kill the menu before running the app