FTDI Drivers

[michaelayland]

I have a AIS Receiver which requires a ftdi chip driver(which I have) but I am stumped as to how I may get wine to load and see it. I need to run ShipPlotter software which seems to sit very nicely in the Wine environment but cannot make contact with the receiver as there is no driver. Any help would be appreciated.

[jjmckenzie]

On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 6:20 AM, michaelayland
<[email protected]> wrote:

I have a AIS Receiver which requires a ftdi chip driver(which I have) but  I am stumped as to how I may get wine to load and see it

Wine cannot and never will be able to use Windows drivers. You will
either have to find or build a Linux driver stack.

James

[michaelayland]

Ok and Thank You
Is there a simple way of doing this??

[VPa]

Well, FTDI does provide drivers for Linux. Applications that contact devices use either of these two modes:

1) Virtual COM Port. In this mode the device becomes a COM port and is supposed to be accessed from application level like one of those ports.

2) Via D2XX. In that scheme application loads a library/module that takes care of interfacing with the USB Device Driver.

I suppose that case (1) could reasonably work in WINE but case (2) probably not... correct me if that's not the case.

The URLs for downloading FTDI drivers are http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm and http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/D2XX.htm .

Can you find out which access mode your receiver software is using?

Vesa

[michaelayland]

I assume from Digital Yacht's instruction it runs via the Virtual Com Port

Their quote:
Windows will create a “virtual” COM port for the AIS100USB and you will need to go to the Windows Device Manager program and look in the “LPT&COM Ports” section to find out what COM port number has been allocated to the AIS100USB. Make a note of this number as you will have to enter this COM port number in the PC Navigation software, so that it knows which port the AIS is connected to – consult the instruction manual supplied with your PC Software to understand how this is configured.

unquote:

Can I do this in wine as my next problem is where to file the Virtual Com port driver and how I find that port

Any advice would be appreciated

[perryh]

"michaelayland" <[email protected]> wrote:

I assume from Digital Yacht's instruction it runs via the Virtual
Com Port ... my next problem is where to file the Virtual Com
port driver and how I find that port

You first need to get Linux to recognize the device as a com port.
Ask your distro how to do that; it's not a wine problem.

Once you have the device recognized in Linux, you can use winecfg
to make it known to wine.

[michaelayland]

Perryh, Thank you for your response
I have used Open CPN (the linux version) and the software recognises the receiver and works as it should. So the device works in linux Ubuntu 11.10

So now I have to progress to getting the Windows software to recognise the same devise which is where I am stumped,

You are recommending winecfg... are you able to guide me further please.

Regards
mike a

[perryh]

"michaelayland" <[email protected]> wrote:

I have used Open CPN (the linux version) and the software
recognises the receiver and works as it should. So the
device works in linux Ubuntu 11.10

So now I have to progress to getting the Windows software to
recognise the same devise which is where I am stumped,

You are recommending winecfg... are you able to guide me further
please.

I'm not familiar with Open CPN, so don't know if it tells you (or
you had to tell it) the Linux name of the device it's using -- if
not the next thing would be to examine the dmesg and/or browse
through /dev to find it.

Then you need to create a symlink in the prefix (.wine directory),
pointing to that device, so that wine can find it. I remember
seeing details somewhere in the wine documentation, and I *expect*
that winecfg can do this, but have not had occasion to do it myself.

[vitamin]

Then you need to create a symlink in the prefix (.wine directory),

It would be more helpful if this instructions would actually work. Please don't give bogus suggestions when you don't know how to fix it!

Symlink serial ports from your device this way:

Code: Select all

ln -s /dev/ttyS0 ~/.wine/dosdevices/com1

Replace the device name "ttyS0" with your device name. For example, if it's a USB serial device then you'll have "ttyUSB0".

[michaelayland]

All the Vitamins I need!

Thank you very much I now have data coming in ( in abundance) Solved the problem.. once I have calibrated my charts and other details I am confident Ship Plotter will work in Wine
see www.ayland.eu/ais/html for results

[michaelayland]

sorry that should be www.ayland.eu/ais.html

[genosensor]

I've just posted a shim layer that allows Windows applications running under Wine to use your Linux drivers at:

http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/D2XX.htm

For best compatibility, this shim does not use the open source FTDI driver.
Each Windows DLL call is simply forwarded to the FTDI provided driver.
Just about any Windows app that will run under Wine can now control the FTD2xx chips.

You can find it here:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/wineftd2xx/files/

and here:

https://github.com/brentr/wineftd2xx

[oiaohm]

genosensor I think you need to revise your make script a little.
http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/FTDrive ... ummary.htm
http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/FTDrive ... eTerms.htm
Directly downloading parts under license like this without asking for user consent is kinda reckless particular with the "Genuine FTDI Component" clause.

genosensor just because you can do something does not mean you should. You usage instructions also lack warning about requirement to agree to other license.

Your best compatibility claim has a issue called "Genuine FTDI Component". Products that a clone products that are not Genuine FTDI but are very very close work better with the open source parts in fact its breach of license to use the Genuine FTDI parts.

Also do take note the closed source driver comes with a dynamic library option. If your shim could possible use the dynamic library option so it can forward like wine opengl does of course with a little tweek of set path to .so file to use. Wine already has a lot of libraries that don't work if other items are not on system. So wine D2XX if closed source driver is missing it could be designed to fail or fall back to open source. Careful design there is very little reason why it could not go for include.

genosensor I do support the effort you have put in. At least step back and fix up that users are warned about the licensing issue before download. Also remember a person could be using Linux native software so already downloaded the driver else where. Yes this is a case you have done what scratches your itch without thinking about the legal issues you just let lose on others.

[axisdj]

Does anyone know if this will work in MacOS?

Are there any other solutions that allow for the use of d2xx ftdi drivers with wine on a mac?