Using Linux LITE OS and finding the driver for a cable

newplumber

Senior Member
Hi Everyone
In short I just bought a (few) 24 desktop computers/screens etc from a auction with OS windows XP 32bit but since they are from a school I have no idea how to get around the passwords and it seems all the computers
where running from a sever so I decided to wipe them and install LINUX LITE and I am very new to this OS but many thanks to whoever invented AXEPAD for linux which saved the day for programming

SO after alot of hours on this forum reading examples how to find the driver I was using I came up with a little plan of my own which seems to work
My Notes I made for simple people like me to try to help
How I installed/found OMS U2P cable driver on linux lite OS

Works on my 32 bit older computers

1-First installed LINUX LITE operating system and wiped the hard drive using a USB drive
2-Update all files for linux lite ...(if you need wifi just buy a D-LINK usb wifi and it works out of the box, no need to find drivers etc)
3-Install Axepad from picaxe.com (not as good as PE6 but works awesome)
4-Open Terminal and you will see the following
(your-name)@(computer-name):~$
example --> Mark@Homepc:~$
then type the following in bold
Mark@Homepc:~$ lsusb

And you should see something like this

Bus 001 Device 001: ID Id6b:0020 linux foundation
Bus 001 Device 005: ID Id6b:0020 linux foundation
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 10c4:ea60 Cygnal Intergrated Products Inc. CP210 …
Bus 001 Device 002: ID Id6b:0020 linux foundation

In above bold is the ID
So make sure it matches with vendor=0x**** product=0x****

Then type the following in bold
Mark@Homepc:~$ sudo modprobe ftdi_sio vendor=0x10c4 product=0xea60

Then type the following in bold
Mark@Homepc:~$ sudo adduser Mark dialout

So where Mark is placed is the name of the user so
Make sure the user is the same so if the user was
Bill@Homepc:~$
Then you would type in the last bold line would be
Bill@Homepc:~$ sudo adduser Bill dialout

You might have to restart computer and open
Axepad and make sure the right picaxe chip is picked then program and download
And it should work perfectly
If I put this in the wrong spot sorry and please move to the right location
the reason I installed Linux Lite is because my Win Xp CD seems to expire in 30 days after installed
 

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
I am intrigued as to what cable you are using; the Cygnal Integrated Products Inc. CP210x doesn't seem to be an FTDI device but you seem to be installing an FTDI driver. Does downloading to the PICAXE actually work ?
 

newplumber

Senior Member
I am intrigued as to what cable you are using; the Cygnal Integrated Products Inc. CP210x doesn't seem to be an FTDI device but you seem to be installing an FTDI driver. Does downloading to the PICAXE actually work ?
Hi Hippy ... I wish I could tell you exactly what cable it is but when I started on picaxe back in 2013 a person sold a picaxe kit on ebay which included these cables so I bought a ton of the kits.
and they quit selling them a year after.
Here is a datasheet
http://www.onebytecpu.com/usermanuals/u2p_datasheet.pdf
So I may have got VERY lucky on having linux lite find/make the driver because it works on 4 computer systems I installed so far
and now each of my kids will have there own picaxe station with a horrible teacher but I have a few backup computers incase one fails :)

and yes it works awesome when i download to a picaxe 20m2 ..haven't tried the 20x2 or others
normally it takes 40+ pages of picaxe forums to get it to work but somehow I got lucky :)
 

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Flenser

Senior Member
Newplumber,

The datasheet is unabiguous, you are using a CP2013 chip
The OMS U2P uses a Silicon Labs CP2103 USB bridge
and your output from lsusb appears to confirm that you have plugged in a CP201x usb chip:
us 001 Device 003: ID 10c4:ea60 Cygnal Intergrated Products Inc. CP210 …
but you are using modprobe to load the module for the FTDI driver.
Mark@Homepc:~$ sudo modprobe ftdi_sio vendor=0x10c4 product=0xea60
I can't explain why you are able to download on some PCs but I'm pretty sure that you will need to install a CP201x driver and not the FTDI driver.

This Silabs link claims the driver is included in the kernel. You could try and confirm this by checking to see if the file it refers to does exist in the directory listed.
https://www.silabs.com/community/interface/knowledge-base.entry.html/2012/12/21/cp210x_driver_inthe-Ojpw

but this link claims that this driver is not included in the kernel that Ubuntu ship. I don't know which is correct. This link is dated April 2017 so it could be out of date.

The first thing I would do is see if the Silabs link is correct by trying load the cp201x driver.
Code:
sudo modprobe cp210x
If that doesn't work then if you google "modprobe cp210x" you will see a lot of links from other people trying to get a CP210x driver installed under linux. Perhaps one of these links will help you.
 

newplumber

Senior Member
Hi Flenser
thanks for the info but I am new to the linux thing so I don't understand quite all what you wrote down
I am only throwing linux on my auction computers for any one that want to learn picaxe ...they will have a whole complete package ..computer/picaxe/screen/etc all set to go free of course and mostly friends/family members ...
I only paid 35 bucks for 24 computers lcdmoniters keyboards (i guess new kids only use laptops?spoiled I say!) but me personally love my setup with PE6 on Win XP
So I will try using "sudo modprobe cp210x" and report back what happens
again i don't know how it works ...i'm just happy it works and celebrated when it down loaded to the picaxe 20m2 along with reading sertxd etc

okay I did try in terminal and it says
sudo: modprode: command not found


the full detail when I type in lsusb is
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 10c4:ea60 Cygnal Integrated Products, Inc. CP210x UART Bridge / myAVR mySmartUSB light
 
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Flenser

Senior Member
newplumber,

If by:
I did and it just dropped back to the same as when you first open terminal
you mean that your terminal output looked like this:
Code:
<your-terminal-session-prompt>  sudo modprobe cp210x
<your-terminal-session-prompt>
then that is likely to be the normal behaviour when the modprobe command completes successfully. It does not report any errors which means it was likely successful.

Try this sequence of commands to check this:
Code:
<your-terminal-session-prompt>  sudo modprobe cp210x
<your-terminal-session-prompt>  echo $?
If you get "0" reported by the "echo $?" command than the "sudo modprobe cp210x" completed successfully.
Plug in your CP2103 module and try a download.
 

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
"lsmod" (ell-ess-em-oh-dee) and "lsmod|more" might reveal some more detail on what device drivers are actually loaded and in use.
 

newplumber

Senior Member
Flenser said:
If you get "0" reported by the "echo $?" command than the "sudo modprobe cp210x" completed successfully.
Plug in your CP2103 module and try a download.
Okay yes I mean <your-terminal-session-prompt>
and yes after i run echo I get a zero
I never had a problem with downloading to the picaxe chip using the cp2103 on 3 computers and I'm still testing but never no errors
and i believe its even faster then PE5 but it could be that my programs are short
but thanks flenser and the terminal in linux with all the commands is still over my head

@ hippy thanks for that maybe there is hope i can move around in linux
but one of my computers I did try the lsmod|more and it revealed this information which means over my head
with computer name being garage1

garage1@garage1com:~$ lsmod|more
Module Size Used by
drbg 28672 1
ansi_cprng 16384 0
ctr 16384 2
ccm 20480 2
arc4 16384 2
rt2800usb 28672 0
rt2x00usb 20480 1 rt2800usb
rt2800lib 90112 1 rt2800usb
rt2x00lib 49152 3 rt2x00usb,rt2800lib,rt2800usb
mac80211 659456 3 rt2x00lib,rt2x00usb,rt2800lib
cfg80211 499712 2 mac80211,rt2x00lib
crc_ccitt 16384 1 rt2800lib
cp210x 24576 0
usbserial 40960 1 cp210x
snd_hda_codec_analog 16384 1
snd_hda_codec_generic 69632 1 snd_hda_codec_analog
gpio_ich 16384 0
snd_hda_intel 36864 3
snd_hda_codec 118784 3 snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_code
c_analog
snd_hda_core 61440 4 snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_inte
l,snd_hda_codec_analog
input_leds 16384 0
dcdbas 16384 0
snd_hwdep 16384 1 snd_hda_codec
coretemp 16384 0
snd_pcm 94208 3 snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_core
snd_seq_midi 16384 0
serio_raw 16384 0
snd_seq_midi_event 16384 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_rawmidi 28672 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq 57344 2 snd_seq_midi_event,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_device 16384 3 snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_midi
snd_timer 32768 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
lpc_ich 20480 0
snd 69632 16 snd_hwdep,snd_timer,snd_pcm,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_hda_co
dec_generic,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_seq_device,snd_hda_codec_analog
soundcore 16384 1 snd
shpchp 32768 0
8250_fintek 16384 0
mac_hid 16384 0
ip6t_REJECT 16384 1
nf_reject_ipv6 16384 1 ip6t_REJECT
nf_log_ipv6 16384 5
xt_hl 16384 22
ip6t_rt 16384 3
nf_conntrack_ipv6 20480 8
nf_defrag_ipv6 28672 1 nf_conntrack_ipv6
ipt_REJECT 16384 1
nf_reject_ipv4 16384 1 ipt_REJECT
nf_log_ipv4 16384 5
nf_log_common 16384 2 nf_log_ipv4,nf_log_ipv6
xt_LOG 16384 10
xt_limit 16384 13
xt_tcpudp 16384 18
xt_addrtype 16384 4
nf_conntrack_ipv4 16384 8
nf_defrag_ipv4 16384 1 nf_conntrack_ipv4
xt_conntrack 16384 16
ip6table_filter 16384 1
ip6_tables 20480 1 ip6table_filter
nf_conntrack_netbios_ns 16384 0
nf_conntrack_broadcast 16384 1 nf_conntrack_netbios_ns
nf_nat_ftp 16384 0
nf_nat 24576 1 nf_nat_ftp
nf_conntrack_ftp 16384 1 nf_nat_ftp
nf_conntrack 98304 8 nf_nat_ftp,nf_conntrack_netbios_ns,nf_nat,xt_conntrack,nf_c
onntrack_broadcast,nf_conntrack_ftp,nf_conntrack_ipv4,nf_conntrack_ipv6
iptable_filter 16384 1
ip_tables 20480 1 iptable_filter
x_tables 24576 13 ip6table_filter,xt_hl,ip_tables,xt_tcpudp,xt_limit,xt_conn
track,xt_LOG,iptable_filter,ip6t_rt,ipt_REJECT,ip6_tables,xt_addrtype,ip6t_REJECT
parport_pc 32768 1
ppdev 20480 0
lp 20480 0
parport 45056 3 lp,ppdev,parport_pc
autofs4 40960 2
btrfs 1003520 0
xor 28672 1 btrfs
raid6_pq 102400 1 btrfs
dm_mirror 24576 0
dm_region_hash 20480 1 dm_mirror
dm_log 20480 2 dm_region_hash,dm_mirror
hid_generic 16384 0
usbhid 49152 0
hid 98304 2 hid_generic,usbhid
i915 1130496 2
video 40960 1 i915
psmouse 118784 0
i2c_algo_bit 16384 1 i915
drm_kms_helper 139264 1 i915
tg3 159744 0
syscopyarea 16384 1 drm_kms_helper
sysfillrect 16384 1 drm_kms_helper
pata_acpi 16384 0
sysimgblt 16384 1 drm_kms_helper
fb_sys_fops 16384 1 drm_kms_helper
ptp 20480 1 tg3
drm 311296 4 i915,drm_kms_helper
pps_core 20480 1 ptp
btw it did take me a few moments to find the | key kind of a hard key to find :)
 

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
Given there's a "cp210x" listed but nothing for "ftdi" I would guess it's using the cp210x drivers. If they are built in then the ftdi modprobe may simply be being ignored. Or you may have done it once but it's not persisting over reboots and it has now forgotten about that.

If it's working as is then everything should be fine whatever it's doing.

There are ways to re-install XP, legitimately and not so much, and it is possible to get past any system passwords on an installed system, but given AXEpad is running okay you can stick with that.

Linux Lite OS seems to be based on Ubuntu / Debian so there should be plenty of help and assistance if you need it. Out of interest what does "uname -a" report ?
 

newplumber

Senior Member
Given there's a "cp210x" listed but nothing for "ftdi" I would guess it's using the cp210x drivers. If they are built in then the ftdi modprobe may simply be being ignored. Or you may have done it once but it's not persisting over reboots and it has now forgotten about that.

If it's working as is then everything should be fine whatever it's doing.

There are ways to re-install XP, legitimately and not so much, and it is possible to get past any system passwords on an installed system, but given AXEpad is running okay you can stick with that.

Linux Lite OS seems to be based on Ubuntu / Debian so there should be plenty of help and assistance if you need it. Out of interest what does "uname -a" report ?
well maybe someday I will understand more of ftdi and modprobe but I just programmed/loaded picaxe 20x2 and as thought...works flawlessly.
the uname -a shows this
garage1@garage1com:~$ uname -a
Linux garage1com 4.4.0-112-generic #135-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jan 19 11:48:14 UTC 2018 i686 i686 i686 GNU/Linux
garage1@garage1com:~$
Maybe someday I will be able to make use out of some of the win xp computers but its so fast to load linux lite
the only draw back for me so far is "linux is case sensitive" and love the fact picaxe is not ....especially for kids programming
 
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