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Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2013 23:37:28 +0100
From: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de>
To: Arthur Chance <freebsd@qeng-ho.org>
Subject: Re: Port devel/arduino serial port problems [SOLVED]
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On Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:59:12 +0000, Arthur Chance wrote:
> However, my point was a little more general than just fixing this 
> specific access problem - many desktop machines these days don't have 
> serial lines or any need for dialer programs, and adding yet another 
> group to an ever increasing list just so that I can talk to an Arduino 
> seems a little redundant.

Remember that this group isn't _that_ new, it has
its own "historical value". :-)

Furthermore, if you consider PPPoE, what are you
actually doing? You're _dialing_ (not with a phone
number, not even through the serial port, but
utilizing means of PPP) with your modem connected
by an Ethernet cable. This mechanism also requires
root privileges, except you are in the "dialer"
group. :-)

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/faq/serial.html



> (As does using /var/spool/lock - isn't that 
> what /dev/cuaU0.lock is for?)

No, those are actual devices, see "man 4 uart" for
details. The subtree /var/spool is primarily used
for things like mail and printer subsystems.






-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...