3.2. Installing Linux Drivers and Software

The Pololu Simple Motor Control Center running under Linux.

You can download the Pololu Simple Motor Control Center (SmcCenter) and the command-line utility (SmcCmd) for Linux here: Simple Motor Controller Linux Software (115k gz).

Unzip the tar/gzip archive by running “tar -xzvf” followed by the name of the file. After following the instructions in README.txt, you can run the programs by executing SmcCenter and SmcCmd.

The Simple Motor Controller’s virtual serial port can be used in Linux without any special driver installation. The virtual serial port is managed by the cdc-acm kernel module, whose source code you can find in your kernel’s source code drivers/usb/class/cdc-acm.c. When you connect the Simple Motor Controller to the PC, the virtual serial port should appear as a device with a name like /dev/ttyACM0 (the number depends on how many other ACM devices you have plugged in). You can use any terminal program (such as kermit) to send commands and receive responses on those ports.