Uni-T Interface

What works

Everything (except minor bugs as below).

Works both via a physical (/dev/ttyS*) serial port, or via an USB to serial converter (/dev/ttyUSB*).

Works as if it was installed on Windows.

Does not require any configuration at all, runs out of the box.

What does not

Minor graphical glitches that don't affect regular usage (for instance, the "fill" text would vanish at random, but the checkbox is still clickable and the function works perfectly).

Also, some of the text is not anti-aliased (it remains as a normal bitmap, although it is not a problem at all, it just looks funny in a totally anti-aliased DE)

Minor bug: if you have Minicom or another program that's accessing the serial port, the UNI-T interface will fail to run. You need to close all programs that take control of the serial port before opening this program.

Workarounds

What was not tested

Everything was tested, except functionality on a 64-bit Wineprefix.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

Tested using multimeter UNI-T UT61C with the supplied IR to RS232 cable. I've used the physical RS232 port at the back of my desktop PC (motherboard: Biostar TA890GXE with header) and it worked flawlessly out of the box. Also tested with a CH340-based USB to serial converter. Tested on a 32 bit Wineprefix set to Windows XP.

Normally, with a physical serial port, the program automatically recognises the multimeter and treats /dev/ttyS0 as "COM1".

When you are using an USB to serial converter, like a CH340 or FT232RL, Linux treats it as /dev/ttyS0 (/dev/ttyS1 if you have more than one attached, and so on).
Most of the times, to get the converter working, you just need to open the UNI-T interface program and click on the "COM1" button. Try to reconnect again, and if it still does not work, click again on the "COM2" button and repeat until it connects.

If, for any reason, it loops back to "COM1" without being able to connect to the multimeter, it might be that Wine is not linking your converter to the virtual COM port file.

You can do that manually by closing the UNI-T interface and issuing the command:

ln -s /dev/ttyUSB0 ~/.wine/dosdevices/com2

This will link the USB to serial converter to a virtual COM2 port in Wine. Now open the UNI-T interface again, click on "COM1" until it changes to "COM2" and try to connect.

Now it should pick up the converter.

If the program still doesn't pick up the multimeter:

• Check that the multimeter is indeed in serial mode, with the "S" icon showing on the display (I forgot more than once!)
• Check that the cable on the multimeter is seated properly, because the connection is very loose at least on my model.
  
• Check that the USB to serial converter is indeed on /dev/ttyS0. Use a Linux serial terminal software such as Minicom to see if the multimeter is outputting any sort of data (even gibberish). If it doesn't, either the port is wrong (try another one) or the converter is faulty.