Mac users only: A Virtual com port in a virtual machine.

> Larry,
> 
>   I received this fix/hack 
> for the MCT driver problem on
> the Mac under OS 10.3 (Panther). 
>  You might want to post
> it with your other info on 
> drivers for the USB-G4.
> 
> @(^.^)@  Ed


Larry,

  I just received this from a past customer:

> I have been using the USB to Serial 
> Converter drivers from the bottom 
> of the page at the below link, to 
> connect my eTrex GPS to OSX using 
> your eUSB1 cable.  Now it won't 
> work with 10.3.2 and I was hoping you 
> know of another driver that will work 
> with your eUSB1 cable. I would 
> appreciate any help you could give me.
> 
> http://www.mct.com.tw/driver.html


Have you heard of problems with 
OS 10.3, or is there a newer driver
that will work?  You should pass 
this on to MCT, as Apple is agressively
pushing to upgrade all recent Macs 
to the latest version of OSX.

@(^.^)@  Ed


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Ed,


I was able to hack the driver and it now works. The problem is the
permissions. I used the Terminal in root and here is how to do it. 

Download and install the last driver at the bottom of this web page.

http://www.mct.com.tw/driver.html

 If you don't have root set up in your computer here is how to do it.
Go to Applications/Utilities and launch the NetInfo Manager. Go into the
"Security" menu and choose "Enable Root User" Choose a password and
type it in both appropriate fields. Once you are done, quit NetInfo
Manager.

Go to Application/Utilities and launch the Terminal. Now type: 

sudo su   

Then hit return. You will get a warning and then you type in your
administration password and hit return. Do not type in your root
password.

Up will come the name of your hard drive followed by your user name
and the characters root #. It will look something like this.

Guys-Computer:/Users/guy root#

Now type or past the below line in and then hit return.

chmod -R og-w /System/Library/Extensions/USBSerialDriver.kext

Then type or past the below line in and hit return.

chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/USBSerialDriver.kext

Quite the Terminal and restart. You will no longer received the message that it
was installed incorrectly and the driver will now work.

Here is what my Terminal looked like when I was done with it. Use this
for reference.

Last login: Mon Jan 19 18:42:24 on console

Welcome to Darwin!

Guys-Computer:~ guy$ sudo su

Password:

Guys-Computer:/Users/guy root# chmod -R og-w
/System/Library/Extensions/USBSerialDriver.kext

Guys-Computer:/Users/guy root# chown -R
root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/USBSerialDriver.kext                                            

usage: chown [-fhv] [-R [-H | -L | -P]] owner[:group] file ...

       chown [-fhv] [-R [-H | -L | -P]] :group file ...

Guys-Computer:/Users/guy root# 

I found this hint on MacOSXHints.com and adapted to use with the
driver from the link above and it worked well. Here is the hack on
MacOSXHints.com.

http://shorterlink.com/?TZNSUS

Guy

--Apple-Mail-2--385943024--


===================

Tiger Update 1/2006:
--------------------
For months the above seemed 
to be helping folks though I never
understood why - until Dan, 
Pfranc of Canada, looked 
into it and explained it to me - 
and this actually will help more
Mac folks I'm sure.  It helped me 
and I don't own a Mac.  Thanks Dan!
mybest,larry,

Dan says:

...- it turned out that all I 
had to do was change  
the default permissions of 
the driver.  I did a bit of investigation  
into the matter beyond what 
your link said once I found that it  
worked, to try and figure 
out why :-)  It turns out that OS 10.4  
(Tiger), in an effort to be 
more security conscious, doesn't enable  
drivers that have permissions 
set where anyone can write to its  
kernel extension directory.  
And the OS X driver available has its  
permissions set too loose.  
So just tightening them up made  
everything work as it always had.

I like understanding *why* 
something works :-)

Thanks for getting back to 
me about this, so that I 
can continue to  
claim that the converters 
work properly on all Macs 
and Windows - and  
the fix to get it to work 
with Tiger is pretty simple.

Hope you guys are doing well down there!

Dan
--
Syzygy Research & Technology
Box 83, Legal, AB  T0G 1L0 Canada
Phone: 780-961-2213




=======================================================

OK.... now ... the unreal stuff.

THINKING VIRTUAL:

On 2002.06.03 00:56, "Pfranc larry"  wrote:
> It's normal that it can't find the diriver because it doesn't know were to
> look until we tell it.
> I copy them into a directory named temp, then tell the Windows driver
> searching routine where to search for them.  Let me know.
> A virtual COM port in a virtual machine - why not.
>

I finally got it working. I'll share a few hints, in case you have any
customers who are trying to set up a virtual port on a virtual machine.

I encountered 2 problems.

First, the problem loading the driver. The virtual machine supports sharing
directories with the Macintosh OS. I had downloaded and expanded the
drivers into one of these shared directories.  Oddly enough, although the
driver installer showed that directory in the browser it 
offers when I chose to search for a driver in a particular 
location, it could not read the files from that directory.  Finally I had 
the bright idea of copying the files onto the (virtual) C: drive.  
Windows could handle that, & installed the drivers.

Second, I had a problem setting up communication with the GPS.  The mapping
software I use is MapSend Topo, which is the topographic map for the
Magellan Meridian.  It has a function for autoconfiguring and testing
communication with the GPS unit.  The test succeeded the first time I tried
it, but when I attempted to repeat the test, the program would lock up,
requiring a restart of the VM.  I thought for a long time that after the
first communication, the link was left in a broken state. I used the Device
Manager to tweek the port settings in a number of ways, none of which
worked. Finally, I realized that MapSend at least was remembering the result
of the first test, so that it knew which port to use.  Maybe, I thought,
just the testing function is broken.  And indeed that was the case. The
uploading and downloading worked.  For MapSend, at least, the procedure is
to start the program, select the comm port & test it, so that MapSend the
port and baud rate, restart Virtual PC, and launch MapSend. Then it works. I
also set the baud rate on the GPS unit and on the com port (through Device
Manager) to 19200.

I was a bit skeptical when I orderd the device. It seemed to be asking too
much to have a virtual port running on a virtual machine.  And there were
moments, during the hours I spent resolving these two problems, that I
suspected this was the case. But all's well that ends well. You've saved me
the price of a PC. No, it's even better than that. You've saved me from
introducing a PC into my purely Mac household:-)

Cordially, Tim.