Minicom - HyperTerminal replacement in Ubuntu

Install minicom using the following command

sudo apt-get install minicom

Now you need to check your serial ports using the following command from your terminal

dmesg|grep ttyS


In my case I have a USB to Serial converter for my laptop that has no serial connectors. For this I had to check for:

dmesg|grep tty

You should see similar to the following output:

[ 0.000000] console [tty0] enabled
[ 0.327050] serial8250: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
[ 0.327417] 00:02: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
[ 77.928931] usb 3-4: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0

This means the device correspond to my serial port is ttyUSB0 (if an actual serial port it should be ttyS0).

Configure minicom using the following command

sudo minicom -s

Use the keyboard keys to select the menu item Serial port setup.

Enter A to change the Serial Device to /dev/ttyS0, and then enter E to change the line speed to 9600 8N1

Using arrow keys, select Save setup as dfl

Select Exit from Minicom.

Next time, from the terminal you only need to run sudo minicom in order to access your Cisco box or you make the user a member of the ‘dialout’ group. Then you don’t have to run minicom with sudo after the initial default configuration. The Dialout group owns all of the serial ports in Ubuntu.

PS - Above info ripped from: http://www.ubuntugeek.com/minicom-hyperterminal-replacement-in-ubuntu.html

Ubuntu Mic not working on HP NX6325 Laptop

I'm posting this here so I (and others) can find it again later...

For the longest time my HP NX6325 laptops Mic never worked in Ubuntu. I used to get it working in older versions but since about version 7 or 8 I could not find any solutions.

I finally started trying all the proposed solutions in threads without success after a fresh 10.10 install.

The following finally worked in Ubuntu 10.10:

On this thread I found a link to a potential solution: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/366563

Here is the link to that particular solution: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=1261847&postcount=9

Keeping in mind that the alsa config file is now alsa-base.conf and can be edited with:
sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

So, edit the above file and enter the following line at the bottom of the file:
options snd-hda-intel position_fix=1 model=3stack

Then just save and reboot... AWESOME - FINALLY!!

Skype - Works
Sound Recorder - Works

Just play with your levels in sound preferences to get the best quality.