My latest configuration manager patch has an extension to the serial driver
which allows it to interact with the CM and attach PnP serial port and modem
devices to serial lines with great ease.
The PnP-BIOS serial devices, if their PnP ID's are listed in the serial
driver's tags table (currently only those whose ID is PNP0501), are attached
in the order found to ttyS0, ttyS1, ttyS2... in order.
Non-BIOS devices such as slot in modem cards can be attached afterwards. For
example, a US Robotics modem whose ID is USR0006 could be attached to
/dev/ttyS17, say, by the following:
echo d serial,usr0006 a 17 >/proc/cm/conf
This will activate the device and attempt to configure it (work out it's UART
type). It can then be used straight away (probably without the need for
setserial to be used).
Any device that has been attached can be detached if not in use. For instance,
the following will detach device USR0006 from it's ttyS.
echo d serial,usr0006 d >/proc/cm/conf
Admittedly, this should probably be done through the ioctl() interface, but
that's a job for another day.
See http://lucifer.hemmet.s-hem.chalmers.se/~dwh to obtain the patch.
Have fun,
David Howells
PS: Many thanks for the offers of web-space.