You asked for the output of ls -la /dev/ttyS? Well here it is ... root at siduxbox:/home/richard# ls -la /dev/ttyS? crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 64 2008-07-09 18:31 /dev/ttyS0 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 65 2008-07-09 18:31 /dev/ttyS1 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 66 2008-07-09 18:31 /dev/ttyS2 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 67 2008-07-09 18:31 /dev/ttyS3 Can you see any difficulties here? Richard Irena & Richard Jenkins Canberra, AUSTRALIA ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++