HPTalx on later versions of Ubuntu

[Neon John]

Hi fellows,

I'm trying to get the freshly download hptalx application to run on
Ubuntu Mate 16.04 LTS.

No luck. I can start it and config it but when it click the "connect"
button, it simply disappears.

Suggestions greatly appreciated.

John
John DeArmond
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.tnduction.com
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
See website for email address

[Joe Horn]

The following comment appears in the User Comments section of HPTalx's entry at hpcalc.org and might be pertinent:

Keith Moore
2012-05-26 15:11:20
... here's how to get a USB-Serial adapter working in Ubuntu:
http://blog.mypapit.net/2008/05/how-to-use-usb-serial-port-converter-in-ubuntu.html

[Neon John]

Thanks Joe,

16.04 came already configured and it properly enumerated the
calculator when it was turned on.

After spending most of a day working on the problem, I now know it's a
GTK2+ vs GTK3+ issue. 16.04 comes with 3+ while HPTalx requires 2+.

I haven't found a binary for 16.04 so as much as I hate it, I
endeavored to build from sources. It forked out to about 5 source
packages, each using GNU configure. Out of the 5, 1 made correctly.
At this point, almost 24 hours later, I'm still working on finding the
missing dependencies. That's why I so hate source distributions.

So. Am I barking up the wrong tree? Is there another easy way to do
it?

Thanks
John

[Manuel Ohnemus]

I had once build hptalx from source and the binary is still working on 16.04 but is of no use on my current machine as I only own a serial cable and no USB-serial-converter.
I remember that hptalx needs ckermit to work which is provided by ubuntu:

sudo apt install ckermit

[Neon John]

Thanks Manuel. I guess that will be my next step.

Thanks again,
John

[Steve R.]

Hello,

Can I suggest you to use ckermit on Linux?...

To install kermit on Ubuntu sudo apt-get install ckermit Commands for configuring kermit:

set line /dev/ttyUSB0 set speed 9600
set parity none set file type ascii
set carrier-watch off
set modem type direct
set flow none
set block 2
set control prefix all

Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvU92qStatw

Yes, I know, it is command line based, but it works under Linux.

Unless someone else from the forums can help to fix the problem with HPTalx and GTK3+ as you mentioned.

Thanks.

[Neon John]

On Mon, 26 Mar 2018 07:29:19 -0700 (PDT), "Steve R."
<teket...@live.com> wrote:

>Hello,
>
>Can I suggest you to use ckermit on Linux?...

Thanks. I installed ckermit long ago. It won't talk either. I've
made a break-in USB cable so that I can scope the data lines. I can
see the calculator server sending packets but no reply.

I did this procedure to check for bus activity in preparation for
using netshark. No activity.

https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/usb/usbmon.txt

So apparently something is wrong in the kernel. I'm covered up with
work and can't spend any more time on this right now. I was hoping
that someone had already solved this problem.

Thanks