1MINICOM(1) Version 2.6.2 MINICOM(1)
2
6 minicom - friendly serial communication program
7
9 minicom [options] [configuration]
10
12 minicom is a communication program which somewhat resembles the share‐
13 ware program TELIX but is free with source code and runs under most
14 Unices. Features include dialing directory with auto-redial, support
15 for UUCP-style lock files on serial devices, a separate script language
16 interpreter, capture to file, multiple users with individual configura‐
17 tions, and more.
18
20 -s, --setup
21 Setup. Root edits the system-wide defaults in /etc/minirc.dfl
22 with this option. When it is used, minicom does not initialize,
23 but puts you directly into the configuration menu. This is very
24 handy if minicom refuses to start up because your system has
25 changed, or for the first time you run minicom. For most systems,
26 reasonable defaults are already compiled in.
27 -o, --noinit
29 Do not initialize. Minicom will skip the initialization code.
30 This option is handy if you quit from minicom without resetting,
31 and then want to restart a session. It is potentially dangerous
32 though: no check for lock files etc. is made, so a normal user
33 could interfere with things like UUCP... maybe this will be taken
34 out later. For now it is assumed, that users who are given access
35 to a modem are responsible enough for their actions.
36 -m, --metakey
38 Override command-key with the Meta or ALT key. This is the default
39 in 1.80 and it can also be configured in one of minicom's menus,
40 but if you use different terminals all the time, of which some
41 don't have a Meta or ALT key, it's handy to set the default com‐
42 mand key to Ctrl-A and use this option when you have a keyboard
43 supporting Meta or ALT keys. Minicom assumes that your Meta key
44 sends the ESC prefix, not the other variant that sets the highest
45 bit of the character.
46 -M, --metakey8
48 Same as -m, but assumes that your Meta key sets the 8th bit of the
49 character high (sends 128 + character code).
50 -z, --statline
52 Use terminal status line. This only works on terminals that sup‐
53 port it and that have the relevant information in their termcap or
54 terminfo database entry.
55 -l, --ansi
57 Literal translation of characters with the high bit set. With this
58 flag on, minicom will try to translate the IBM line characters to
59 ASCII. Many PC-unix clones will display character correctly with‐
60 out translation (Linux in a special mode, Coherent and SCO).
61 -L, --iso
63 Ditto but assume screen uses an ISO8859 character set.
64 -w, --wrap
66 Turns line-wrap on at startup by default.
67 -H, --displayhex
69 Turn on output in hex mode.
70 -a, --attrib=on/off
72 Attribute usage. Some terminals, notably Televideo's, have rotten
73 attribute handling (serial instead of parallel). By default, mini‐
74 com uses '-a on', but if you are using such a terminal you can
75 (must!) supply the option '-a off'. The trailing 'on' or 'off' is
76 needed.
77 -t, --term=TERM
79 Terminal type. With this flag, you can override the environment
80 TERM variable. This is handy for use in the MINICOM environment
81 variable; one can create a special termcap entry for use with
82 minicom on the console, that initializes the screen to raw mode so
83 that in conjunction with the -l flag, the IBM line characters are
84 displayed untranslated.
85 -c, --color=on/off
87 Color usage. Some terminals (such as the Linux console) support
88 color with the standard ANSI escape sequences. Because there is
89 apparently no termcap support for color, these escape sequences
90 are hard-coded into minicom. Therefore this option is off by
91 default. You can turn it on with '-c on'. This, and the '-m'
92 option, are good candidates to put into the MINICOM environment
93 variable.
94 -S, --script=SCRIPT
96 script. Run the named script at startup. So far, passing username
97 and password to a startup script is not supported. If you also use
98 the -d option to start dialing at startup, the -S script will be
99 run BEFORE dialing the entries specified with -d.
100 -d, --dial=ENTRY
102 Dial an entry from the dialing directory on startup. You can spec‐
103 ify an index number, but also a substring of the name of the
104 entry. If you specify a name that has multiple entries in the
105 directory, they are all tagged for dialing. You can also specify
106 multiple names or index numbers by separating them with commas.
107 The dialing will start from the first entry specified after all
108 other program initialization procedures are completed.
109 -p, --ptty=TTYP
111 Pseudo terminal to use. This overrides the terminal port defined
112 in the configuration files, but only if it is a pseudo TTY. The
113 filename supplied must be of the form (/dev/)tty[p-z/][0-f],
114 (/dev/)pts[p-z/][0-f] or (/dev/)pty[p-z/][0-f]. For example,
115 /dev/ttyp1, pts/0 or /dev/ptyp2.
116 -C, --capturefile=FILE
118 filename. Open capture file at startup.
119 -T, --disabletime
121 Disable the display of the online time in the status bar.
122 -b, --baudrate
124 Specify the baud rate, overriding the value given in the configu‐
125 ration file.
126 -D, --device
128 Specify the device, overriding the value given in the configura‐
129 tion file.
130 -R, --remotecharset
132 Specify the character set of the remote system is using and con‐
133 vert it to the character set of the local side. Example might be
134 'latin1'.
135 -7, --7bit
137 7bit mode for terminals which aren't 8bit capable. 8bit is default
138 if the environment is configured for this via LANG or LC_ALL, 7bit
139 otherwise.
140 -8, --8bit
142 8bit characters pass through without any modification. 'Continu‐
143 ous' means no locate/attribute control sequences are inserted
144 without real change of locate/attribute. This mode is to display
145 8bit multi-byte characters such as Japanese. Not needed in every
146 language with 8bit characters. (For example displaying Finnish
147 text doesn't need this.)
148 -h, --help
150 Display help and exit.
151 -v, --version
153 Print the minicom version.
154 When minicom starts, it first searches the MINICOM environment
156 variable for command-line arguments, which can be over-ridden on
157 the command line. Thus, if you have done
158 MINICOM='-m -c on'
160 export MINICOM
161 or the equivalent, and start minicom, minicom will assume that
162 your terminal has a Meta or <ALT> key and that color is supported.
163 If you then log in from a terminal without color support, and you
164 have set MINICOM in your startup (.profile or equivalent) file,
165 and don't want to re-set your environment variable, you can type
166 'minicom -c off' and run without color support for that session.
167 configuration
169 The configuration argument is more interesting. Normally, minicom
170 gets its defaults from a file called "minirc.dfl". If you however
171 give an argument to minicom, it will try to get its defaults from
172 a file called "minirc.configuration". So it is possible to create
173 multiple configuration files, for different ports, different users
174 etc. Most sensible is to use device names, such as tty1, tty64,
175 sio2 etc. If a user creates his own configuration file, it will
176 show up in his home directory as ".minirc.dfl" or ".minirc.config‐
177 uration".
178
180 Minicom is window based. To pop-up a window with the function you want,
181 press Control-A (from now on, we will use C-A to mean Control-A), and
182 then the function key (a-z or A-Z). By pressing C-A first and then 'z',
183 a help screen comes up with a short summary of all commands. This
184 escape key can be altered when minicom is configured (-s option or C-A
185 O), but we'll stick to Control-A for now.
186 For every menu the next keys can be used:
188 UP arrow-up or 'k'
189 DOWN arrow-down or 'j'
190 LEFT arrow-left or 'h'
191 RIGHT arrow-right or 'l'
192 CHOOSE Enter
193 CANCEL ESCape.
194 The screen is divided into two portions: the upper 24 lines are the
196 terminal-emulator screen. In this window, ANSI or VT100 escape
197 sequences are interpreted. If there is a line left at the bottom, a
198 status line is placed there. If this is not possible the status line
199 will be showed every time you press C-A. On terminals that have a spe‐
200 cial status line that will be used if the termcap information is com‐
201 plete and the -k flag has been given.
202 Possible commands are listed next, in alphabetical order.
204 C-A Pressing C-A a second time will just send a C-A to the remote sys‐
205 tem. If you have changed your "escape character" to something
206 other than C-A, this works analogously for that character.
207 A Toggle 'Add Linefeed' on/off. If it is on, a linefeed is added
208 before every carriage return displayed on the screen.
209 B Gives you a scroll back buffer. You can scroll up with u, down
210 with d, a page up with b, a page down with f, and if you have them
211 the arrow and page up/page down keys can also be used. You can
212 search for text in the buffer with s (case-sensitive) or S (case-
213 insensitive). N will find the next occurrence of the string. c
214 will enter citation mode. A text cursor appears and you specify
215 the start line by hitting Enter key. Then scroll back mode will
216 finish and the contents with prefix '>' will be sent.
217 C Clears the screen.
218 D Dial a number, or go to the dialing directory.
219 E Toggle local echo on and off (if your version of minicom supports
220 it).
221 F A break signal is sent to the modem.
222 G Run script (Go). Runs a login script.
223 H Hangup.
224 I Toggle the type of escape sequence that the cursor keys send
225 between normal and applications mode. (See also the comment about
226 the status line below).
227 J Jump to a shell. On return, the whole screen will be redrawn.
228 K Clears the screen, runs kermit and redraws the screen upon return.
229 L Turn Capture file on off. If turned on, all output sent to the
230 screen will be captured in the file too.
231 M Sends the modem initialization string. If you are online and the
232 DCD line setting is on, you are asked for confirmation before the
233 modem is initialized.
234 N Toggle between three states, whether each line is prefixed with
235 current date and time, a timestamp is added every second, or no
236 timestamps.
237 O Configure minicom. Puts you in the configuration menu.
238 P Communication Parameters. Allows you to change the bps rate, par‐
239 ity and number of bits.
240 Q Exit minicom without resetting the modem. If macros changed and
241 were not saved, you will have a chance to do so.
242 R Receive files. Choose from various protocols (external). If you
243 have the filename selection window and the prompt for download
244 directory enabled, you'll get a selection window for choosing the
245 directory for downloading. Otherwise the download directory
246 defined in the Filenames and paths menu will be used.
247 S Send files. Choose the protocol like you do with the receive com‐
248 mand. If you don't have the filename selection window enabled (in
249 the File transfer protocols menu), you'll just have to write the
250 filename(s) in a dialog window. If you have the selection window
251 enabled, a window will pop up showing the filenames in your upload
252 directory. You can tag and untag filenames by pressing spacebar,
253 and move the cursor up and down with the cursor keys or j/k. The
254 selected filenames are shown highlighted. Directory names are
255 shown [within brackets] and you can move up or down in the direc‐
256 tory tree by pressing the spacebar twice. Finally, send the files
257 by pressing ENTER or quit by pressing ESC.
258 T Choose Terminal emulation: Ansi(color) or vt100. You can also
259 change the backspace key here, turn the status line on or off, and
260 define delay (in milliseconds) after each newline if you need
261 that.
262 W Toggle line-wrap on/off.
263 X Exit minicom, reset modem. If macros changed and were not saved,
264 you will have a chance to do so.
265 Y Paste a file. Reads a file and sends its contests just as if it
266 would be typed in.
267 Z Pop up the help screen.
268
270 By pressing C-A D the program puts you in the dialing directory. Select
271 a command by pressing the capitalized letter or moving cursor
272 right/left with the arrow keys or the h/l keys and pressing Enter. You
273 can add, delete or edit entries and move them up and down in the direc‐
274 tory list. By choosing "dial" the phone numbers of the tagged entries,
275 or if nothing is tagged, the number of the highlighted entry will be
276 dialed. While the modem is dialing, you can press escape to cancel
277 dialing. Any other key will close the dial window, but won't cancel the
278 dialing itself. Your dialing directory will be saved into the file
279 ".dialdir" in your home directory. You can scroll up and down with the
280 arrow keys, but you can also scroll complete pages by pressing the
281 PageUp or PageDown key. If you don't have those, use Control-B (Back‐
282 ward) and Control-F (Forward). You can use the space bar to tag a num‐
283 ber of entries and minicom will rotate trough this list if a connection
284 can't be made. A '>' symbol is drawn in the directory before the names
285 of the tagged entries.
286 The "edit" menu speaks for itself, but I will discuss it briefly here.
288 A - Name The name for this entry
289 B - Number
290 and its telephone number.
291 C - Dial string #
292 Which specific dial string you want to use to connect. There
293 are three different dial strings (prefixes and suffixes) that
294 can be configured in the Modem and dialing menu.
295 D - Local echo
296 can be on or off for this system (if your version of minicom
297 supports it).
298 E - Script
299 The script that must be executed after a successful connec‐
300 tion is made (see the manual for runscript)
301 F - Username
302 The username that is passed to the runscript program. It is
303 passed in the environment string "$LOGIN".
304 G - Password
305 The password is passed as "$PASS".
306 H - Terminal Emulation
307 Use ANSI or VT100 emulation.
308 I - Backspace key sends
309 What code (Backspace or Delete) the backspace key sends.
310 J - Linewrap
311 Can be on or off.
312 K - Line settings
313 Bps rate, bits, parity and number of stop bits to use for
314 this connection. You can choose current for the speed, so
315 that it will use whatever speed is being used at that moment
316 (useful if you have multiple modems).
317 L - Conversion table
318 You may specify a character conversion table to be loaded
319 whenever this entry answers, before running the login script.
320 If this field is blank, the conversion table stays unchanged.
321 The edit menu also shows the latest date and time when you called this
322 entry and the total number of calls there, but doesn't let you change
323 them. They are updated automatically when you connect.
324 The moVe command lets you move the highlighted entry up or down in the
326 dialing directory with the up/down arrow keys or the k and j keys.
327 Press Enter or ESC to end moving the entry.
328
330 By pressing C-A O you will be thrown into the setup menu.
331 Filenames and paths
333 This menu defines your default directories.
334 A - Download directory
335 where the downloaded files go to.
336 B - Upload directory
337 where the uploaded files are read from.
338 C - Script directory
339 Where you keep your login scripts.
340 D - Script program
341 Which program to use as the script interpreter. Defaults to the
342 program "runscript", but if you want to use something else (eg,
343 /bin/sh or "expect") it is possible. Stdin and stdout are con‐
344 nected to the modem, stderr to the screen.
345 If the path is relative (ie, does not start with a slash) then
346 it's relative to your home directory, except for the script
347 interpreter.
348 E - Kermit program
349 Where to find the executable for kermit, and it's options. Some
350 simple macro's can be used on the command line: '%l' is expanded
351 to the complete filename of the dial out-device, '%f' is
352 expanded to the serial port file descriptor and '%b' is expanded
353 to the current serial port speed.
354 F - Logging options
355 Options to configure the logfile writing.
356 A - File name
358 Here you can enter the name of the logfile. The file will
359 be written in your home directory, and the default value is
360 "minicom.log". If you blank the name, all logging is
361 turned off.
362 B - Log connects and hangups
364 This option defines whether or not the logfile is written
365 when the remote end answers the call or hangs up. Or when
366 you give the hangup command yourself or leave minicom with‐
367 out hangup while online.
368 C - Log file transfers
370 Do you want log entries of receiving and sending files.
371 The 'log' command in the scripts is not affected by logging options B
372 and C. It is always executed, if you just have the name of the log
373 file defined.
374 File Transfer Protocols
376 Protocols defined here will show up when C-A s/r is pressed. "Name"
377 in the beginning of the line is the name that will show up in the
378 menu. "Program" is the path to the protocol. "Name" after that
379 defines if the program needs an argument, e.g. a file to be transmit‐
380 ted. U/D defines if this entry should show up in the upload or the
381 download menu. Fullscr defines if the program should run full
382 screen, or that minicom will only show it's stderr in a window. IO-
383 Red defines if minicom should attach the program's standard in and
384 output to the modem port or not. "Multi" tells the filename selection
385 window whether or not the protocol can send multiple files with one
386 command. It has no effect on download protocols, and it is also
387 ignored with upload protocols if you don't use the filename selection
388 window. The old sz and rz are not full screen, and have IO-Red set.
389 However, there are curses based versions of at least rz that do not
390 want their stdin and stdout redirected, and run full screen. All
391 file transfer protocols are run with the UID of the user, and not
392 with UID=root. '%l', '%f' and '%b' can be used on the command line as
393 with kermit. Within this menu you can also define if you want to use
394 the filename selection window when prompted for files to upload, and
395 if you like to be prompted for the download directory every time the
396 automatic download is started. If you leave the download directory
397 prompt disabled, the download directory defined in the file and
398 directory menu is used.
399 Serial port setup
401 A - Serial device
402 /dev/tty1 or /dev/ttyS1 for most people. /dev/cua<n> is still
403 possible under GNU/Linux, but no longer recommended as these
404 devices are obsolete and many systems with kernel 2.2.x or newer
405 don't have them. Use /dev/ttyS<n> instead. You may also have
406 /dev/modem as a symlink to the real device.
407 If you have modems connected to two or more serial ports, you
408 may specify all of them here in a list separated by space, comma
409 or semicolon. When Minicom starts, it checks the list until it
410 finds an available modem and uses that one. (However, you can't
411 specify different init strings to them... at least not yet.)
412 To use a UNIX socket for communication the device name must be
413 prefixed with "unix#" following by the full path and the file‐
414 name of the socket. Minicom will then try to connect to this
415 socket as a client. As long as it cannot connect to the socket
416 it stays 'offline'. As soon as the connection establishes, mini‐
417 com goes 'online'. If the server closes the socket, minicom
418 switches to 'offline' again.
419 B - Lock file location
420 On most systems This should be /usr/spool/uucp. GNU/Linux sys‐
421 tems use /var/lock. If this directory does not exist, minicom
422 will not attempt to use lockfiles.
423 C - Callin program
424 If you have a uugetty or something on your serial port, it could
425 be that you want a program to be run to switch the modem cq.
426 port into dialin/dialout mode. This is the program to get into
427 dialin mode.
428 D - Callout program
429 And this to get into dialout mode.
430 E - Bps/Par/Bits
431 Default parameters at startup.
432 If one of the entries is left blank, it will not be used. So if you
434 don't care about locking, and don't have a getty running on your
435 modemline, entries B - D should be left blank.
436 Modem and Dialing
438 Here, the parameters for your modem are defined. I will not explain
439 this further because the defaults are for generic Hayes modems, and
440 should work always. This file is not a Hayes tutorial :-) The only
441 things worth noticing are that control characters can be sent by pre‐
442 fixing them with a '^', in which '^^' means '^' itself, and the '\'
443 character must also be doubled as '\\', because backslash is used
444 specially in the macro definitions. Some options however, don't have
445 much to do with the modem but more with the behaviour of minicom
446 itself:
447 M - Dial time
448 The number of seconds before minicom times out if no connection
449 is established.
450 N - Delay before redial
451 Minicom will redial if no connection was made, but it first
452 waits some time.
453 O - Number of tries
454 Maximum number of times that minicom attempts to dial.
455 P - Drop DTR time
456 If you set this to 0, minicom hangs up by sending a Hayes-type
457 hangup sequence. If you specify a non-zero value, the hangup
458 will be done by dropping the DTR line. The value tells in sec‐
459 onds how long DTR will be kept down.
460 Q - Auto bps detect
461 If this is on, minicom tries to match the dialed party's speed.
462 With most modern modems this is NOT desirable, since the modem
463 buffers the data and converts the speed.
464 R - Modem has DCD line
465 If your modem, and your O/S both support the DCD line (that goes
466 'high' when a connection is made) minicom will use it. When you
467 have this option on, minicom will also NOT start dialing while
468 you are already online.
469 S - Status line shows DTE speed / line speed
470 You can toggle the status line to show either the DTE speed (the
471 speed which minicom uses to communicate with your modem) or the
472 line speed (the speed that your modem uses on the line to commu‐
473 nicate with the other modem). Notice that the line speed may
474 change during the connection, but you will still only see the
475 initial speed that the modems started the connection with. This
476 is because the modem doesn't tell the program if the speed is
477 changed. Also, to see the line speed, you need to have the modem
478 set to show it in the connect string. Otherwise you will only
479 see 0 as the line speed.
480 T - Multi-line untag
481 You can toggle the feature to untag entries from the dialing
482 directory when a connection is established to a multi-line BBS.
483 All the tagged entries that have the same name are untagged.
484 Note that a special exception is made for this menu: every user
486 can change all parameters here, but some of them will not be
487 saved.
488 Screen and keyboard
490 A - Command key is
491 the 'Hot Key' that brings you into command mode. If this is set
492 to 'ALT' or 'meta key', you can directly call commands by alt-
493 key instead of HotKey-key.
494 B - Backspace key sends
495 There still are some systems that want a VT100 to send DEL
496 instead of BS. With this option you can enable that stupidity.
497 (Eh, it's even on by default...)
498 C - Status line is
499 Enabled or disabled. Some slow terminals (for example, X-termi‐
500 nals) cause the status line to jump "up and down" when
501 scrolling, so you can turn it off if desired. It will still be
502 shown in command-mode.
503 D - Alarm sound
504 If turned on, minicom will sound an alarm (on the console only)
505 after a successful connection and when up/downloading is com‐
506 plete.
507 E - Foreground Color (menu)
508 indicates the foreground color to use for all the configuration
509 windows in minicom.
510 F - Background Color (menu)
511 indicates the background color to use for all the configuration
512 windows in minicom. Note that minicom will not allow you to set
513 foreground and background colors to the same value.
514 G - Foreground Color (term)
515 indicates the foreground color to use in the terminal window.
516 H - Background Color (term)
517 indicates the background color to use in the terminal window.
518 Note that minicom will not allow you to set foreground and back‐
519 ground colors to the same value.
520 I - Foreground Color (stat)
521 indicates the foreground color to use in for the status bar.
522 J - Background Color (stat)
523 indicates the color to use in for the status bar. Note that
524 minicom will allow you to set the status bar's foreground and
525 background colors to the same value. This will effectively make
526 the status bar invisible but if these are your intentions,
527 please see the option
528 K - History buffer size
529 The number of lines to keep in the history buffer (for
530 backscrolling).
531 L - Macros file
532 is the full path to the file that holds macros. Macros allow you
533 to define a string to be sent when you press a certain key. In
534 minicom, you may define F1 through F10 to send up to 256 charac‐
535 ters [this is set at compile time]. The filename you specify is
536 verified as soon as you hit ENTER. If you do not have permis‐
537 sions to create the specified file, an error message will so
538 indicate and you will be forced to re-edit the filename. If you
539 are permitted to create the file, minicom checks to see if it
540 already exists. If so, it assumes it's a macro file and reads it
541 in. If it isn't, well, it's your problem :-) If the file does
542 not exist, the filename is accepted.
543 M - Edit Macros
544 opens up a new window which allows you to edit the F1 through
545 F10 macros.
546 N - Macros enabled
547 - Yes or No. If macros are disabled, the F1-F10 keys will just
548 send the VT100/VT220 function key escape sequences.
549 O - Character conversion
550 The active conversion table filename is shown here. If you can
551 see no name, no conversion is active. Pressing O, you will see
552 the conversion table edit menu.
553 Edit Macros
555 Here, the macros for F1 through F10 are defined. The bottom
556 of the window shows a legend of character combinations that
557 have special meaning. They allow you to enter special con‐
558 trol characters with plain text by prefixing them with a '^',
559 in which '^^' means '^' itself. You can send a 1 second delay
560 with the '^~' code. This is useful when you are trying to
561 login after ftp'ing or telnet'ing somewhere. You can also
562 include your current username and password from the phone
563 directory in the macros with '\u' and '\p', respectively. If
564 you need the backslash character in the macro, write it dou‐
565 bled as '\\'. To edit a macro, press the number (or letter
566 for F10) and you will be moved to the end of the macro. When
567 editing the line, you may use the left & right arrows, Home &
568 End keys, Delete & BackSpace, and ESC and RETURN. ESC can‐
569 cels any changes made while ENTER accepts the changes.
570 Character conversion
572 Here you can edit the character conversion table. If you are
573 not an American, you know that in many languages there are
574 characters that are not included in the ASCII character set,
575 and in the old times they may have replaced some less impor‐
576 tant characters in ASCII and now they are often represented
577 with character codes above 127. AND there are various differ‐
578 ent ways to represent them. This is where you may edit con‐
579 version tables for systems that use a character set different
580 from the one on your computer.
581 A - Load table
583 You probably guessed it. This command loads a table from
584 the disk. You are asked a file name for the table. Prede‐
585 fined tables .mciso, .mcpc8 and .mcsf7 should be included
586 with the program. Table .mciso does no conversion, .mcpc8
587 is to be used for connections with systems that use the
588 8-bit pc character set, and .mcsf7 is for compatibility
589 with the systems that uses the good old 7-bit coding to
590 replace the characters {|}[]\ with the diacritical charac‐
591 ters used in Finnish and Swedish.
592 B - Save table
594 This one saves the active table on the filename you spec‐
595 ify.
596 C - edit char
598 This is where you can make your own modifications to the
599 existing table. First you are asked the character value
600 (in decimal) whose conversion you want to change. Next
601 you'll say which character you want to see on your screen
602 when that character comes from the outside world. And then
603 you'll be asked what you want to be sent out when you enter
604 that character from your keyboard.
605 D - next screen
607 E - prev screen
609 Yeah, you probably noticed that this screen shows you what
610 kind of conversions are active. The screen just is (usu‐
611 ally) too small to show the whole table at once in an easy-
612 to-understand format. This is how you can scroll the table
613 left and right.
614 F - convert capture
616 Toggles whether or not the character conversion table is
617 used when writing the capture file.
618 Save setup as dfl
620 Save the parameters as the default for the next time the program is
621 started. Instead of dfl, any other parameter name may appear, depend‐
622 ing on which one was used when the program was started.
623 Save setup as..
625 Save the parameters under a special name. Whenever Minicom is started
626 with this name as an argument, it will use these parameters. This
627 option is of course privileged to root.
628 Exit
630 Escape from this menu without saving. This can also be done with
631 ESC.
632 Exit from minicom
634 Only root will see this menu entry, if he/she started minicom with
635 the '-s' option. This way, it is possible to change the configuration
636 without actually running minicom.
637
639 The status line has several indicators, that speak for themselves. The
640 mysterious APP or NOR indicator probably needs explanation. The VT100
641 cursor keys can be in two modes: applications mode and cursor mode.
642 This is controlled by an escape sequence. If you find that the cursor
643 keys do not work in, say, vi when you're logged in using minicom then
644 you can see with this indicator whether the cursor keys are in applica‐
645 tions or cursor mode. You can toggle the two with the C-A I key. If the
646 cursor keys then work, it's probably an error in the remote system's
647 termcap initialization strings (is).
648
650 Minicom has support for local languages. This means you can change most
651 of the English messages and other strings to another language by set‐
652 ting the environment variable LANG.
653
655 If minicom is hung, kill it with SIGTERM . (This means kill -15, or
656 since sigterm is default, just plain "kill <minicompid>". This will
657 cause a graceful exit of minicom, doing resets and everything. You may
658 kill minicom from a script with the command "! killall -9 minicom"
659 without hanging up the line. Without the -9 parameter, minicom first
660 hangs up before exiting.
661 Since a lot of escape sequences begin with ESC (Arrow up is ESC [ A),
663 Minicom does not know if the escape character it gets is you pressing
664 the escape key, or part of a sequence.
665 An old version of Minicom, V1.2, solved this in a rather crude way: to
667 get the escape key, you had to press it twice.
668 As of release 1.3 this has bettered a little: now a 1-second timeout is
670 builtin, like in vi. For systems that have the select() system call the
671 timeout is 0.5 seconds. And... surprise: a special Linux-dependent hack
672 :-) was added. Now, minicom can separate the escape key and escape-
673 sequences. To see how dirty this was done, look into wkeys.c. But it
674 works like a charm!
675
677 Minicom keeps it's configuration files in one directory, usually
678 /var/lib/minicom, /usr/local/etc or /etc. To find out what default
679 directory minicom has compiled in, issue the command minicom -h.
680 You'll probably also find the demo files for runscript(1), and the
681 examples of character conversion tables either there or in the subdi‐
682 rectories of /usr/doc/minicom*. The conversion tables are named some‐
683 thing like mc.* in that directory, but you probably want to copy the
684 ones you need in your home directory as something beginning with a dot.
685 minirc.*
687 $HOME/.minirc.*
688 $HOME/.dialdir
689 $HOME/minicom.log
690 /usr/share/locale/*/LC_MESSAGES/minicom.mo
691
693 runscript(1)
694
696 Please report any bugs to minicom-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org. Thank
697 you!
698
700 The original author of minicom is Miquel van Smoorenburg
701 (miquels@cistron.nl). He wrote versions up to 1.75.
702 Jukka Lahtinen (walker@netsonic.fi, jukkal@despammed.com) has been
703 responsible for new versions since 1.78, helped by some other people,
704 including:
705 filipg@paranoia.com wrote the History buffer searching to 1.79.
706 Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo (acme@conectiva.com.br) did the international‐
707 ization and the Brazilian Portuguese translations.
708 Jim Seymour (jseymour@jimsun.LinxNet.com) wrote the multiple modem sup‐
709 port and the filename selection window used since 1.80.
710 Tomohiro Kubota (kubota@debian.or.jp) wrote the Japanese translations
711 and the citation facility, and did some fixes.
712 Gael Queri (gqueri@mail.dotcom.fr) wrote the French translations.
713 Arkadiusz Miskiewicz (misiek@pld.org.pl) wrote the Polish translations.
714 Kim Soyoung (nexti@chollian.net) wrote the Korean translations.
715 Jork Loeser (jork.loeser@inf.tu-dresden.de) provided the socket exten‐
716 sion.
717 Most of this man page is copied, with corrections, from the original
719 minicom README, but some pieces and the corrections are by Michael K.
720 Johnson.
721 Jukka Lahtinen (walker@netsonic.fi) has added some information of the
723 changes made after version 1.75.
724User's Manual July 2013 MINICOM(1)