[Thumbgps-devel] YEA! My Sure Electronics GPS just arrived.

[Ron Frazier (NTP)]

Hi all,

I just discovered an interesting thing about the Sure board's serial - 
USB converter.  I went ahead and installed the driver.  With this serial 
- USB converter, which is a Silicon Labs CP210x chipset, no matter which 
USB port I plug it into, it becomes COM6, which was the next one 
available.  With the Prolific based devices, including the TU-S9 and the 
BU-353, each subsequent USB port I plug into becomes a new com port, so 
those devices became COM3, COM4, and COM5 respectively as I plugged them 
into succeeding USB ports.  I can see pros and cons either way.

With the Prolific way, if I move the device to a different port, I have 
to have a different setup in the ntp.conf file, although you could 
probably have multiple setups, and if nothing is attached to a given 
port, then it gets ignored.

With the Silicon Labs way, I only have to have one set of configuration 
options in ntp.conf.  However, what happens if I plug in another device 
with the same chipset?  I'm assuming the next one will become COM7.  
But, now, if I unplug both and plug them back into the same ports, but 
in the opposite sequence, I'll bet the original 1st device will now be 
COM7 and the original 2nd device will be COM6.  I can see how this would 
cause some problems.

I have not tested yet whether this board's USB port has a built in 
driver in Linux.

Sincerely,

Ron



-- 

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Ron Frazier
timekeepingdude AT c3energy.com