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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | COMMAND-LINE | USE | DIALING DIRECTORY | CONFIGURATION | STATUS LINE | LOCALES | MISC | FILES | SEE ALSO | BUGS | AUTHORS | COLOPHON |
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MINICOM(1) Version 2.7 MINICOM(1)
minicom - friendly serial communication program
minicom [options] [configuration]
minicom is a communication program which somewhat resembles the
shareware program TELIX but is free with source code and runs
under most Unices. Features include dialing directory with auto-
redial, support for UUCP-style lock files on serial devices, a
separate script language interpreter, capture to file, multiple
users with individual configurations, and more.
-s, --setup
Setup. Root edits the system-wide defaults in
/etc/minirc.dfl with this option. When it is used, minicom
does not initialize, but puts you directly into the
configuration menu. This is very handy if minicom refuses to
start up because your system has changed, or for the first
time you run minicom. For most systems, reasonable defaults
are already compiled in.
-o, --noinit
Do not initialize. Minicom will skip the initialization code.
This option is handy if you quit from minicom without
resetting, and then want to restart a session. It is
potentially dangerous though: no check for lock files etc. is
made, so a normal user could interfere with things like
UUCP... maybe this will be taken out later. For now it is
assumed, that users who are given access to a modem are
responsible enough for their actions.
-m, --metakey
Override command-key with the Meta or ALT key. This is the
default in 1.80 and it can also be configured in one of
minicom's menus, but if you use different terminals all the
time, of which some don't have a Meta or ALT key, it's handy
to set the default command key to Ctrl-A and use this option
when you have a keyboard supporting Meta or ALT keys. Minicom
assumes that your Meta key sends the ESC prefix, not the
other variant that sets the highest bit of the character.
-M, --metakey8
Same as -m, but assumes that your Meta key sets the 8th bit
of the character high (sends 128 + character code).
-z, --statline
Use terminal status line. This only works on terminals that
support it and that have the relevant information in their
termcap or terminfo database entry.
-l, --ansi
Literal translation of characters with the high bit set. With
this flag on, minicom will try to translate the IBM line
characters to ASCII. Many PC-unix clones will display
character correctly without translation (Linux in a special
mode, Coherent and SCO).
-L, --iso
Ditto but assume screen uses an ISO8859 character set.
-w, --wrap
Turns line-wrap on at startup by default.
-H, --displayhex
Turn on output in hex mode.
-a, --attrib=on/off
Attribute usage. Some terminals, notably Televideo's, have
rotten attribute handling (serial instead of parallel). By
default, minicom uses '-a on', but if you are using such a
terminal you can (must!) supply the option '-a off'. The
trailing 'on' or 'off' is needed.
-t, --term=TERM
Terminal type. With this flag, you can override the
environment TERM variable. This is handy for use in the
MINICOM environment variable; one can create a special
termcap entry for use with minicom on the console, that
initializes the screen to raw mode so that in conjunction
with the -l flag, the IBM line characters are displayed
untranslated.
-c, --color=on/off
Color usage. Terminals (such as the Linux console) support
color with the standard ANSI escape sequences. In case there
is no such support, color usage can be disabled with '-c
off'. This, and the '-m' option, are good candidates to put
into the MINICOM environment variable.
-S, --script=SCRIPT
script. Run the named script at startup. So far, passing
username and password to a startup script is not supported.
If you also use the -d option to start dialing at startup,
the -S script will be run BEFORE dialing the entries
specified with -d.
-d, --dial=ENTRY
Dial an entry from the dialing directory on startup. You can
specify an index number, but also a substring of the name of
the entry. If you specify a name that has multiple entries in
the directory, they are all tagged for dialing. You can also
specify multiple names or index numbers by separating them
with commas. The dialing will start from the first entry
specified after all other program initialization procedures
are completed.
-p, --ptty=TTYP
Pseudo terminal to use. This overrides the terminal port
defined in the configuration files, but only if it is a
pseudo TTY. The filename supplied must be of the form
(/dev/)tty[p-z/][0-f], (/dev/)pts[p-z/][0-f] or (/dev/)pty[p-
z/][0-f]. For example, /dev/ttyp1, pts/0 or /dev/ptyp2.
-C, --capturefile=FILE
filename. Open capture file at startup.
--capturefile-buffer-mode=MODE
Buffering mode of capture file. MODE can be one of:
N Unbuffered (the default).
L Line buffered.
F Fully buffered.
-F, --statlinefmt
Format for the status line. The following format specifier
are available:
%H Escape key for help screen.
%V Version string of minicom.
%b Information on connection, such as baud rate.
%T Terminal type.
%C Cursor mode.
%D Device path, possibly shorted to remaining available
space.
%t Online time.
%% % character.
Example: "%H for help | %b | Minicom %V | %T | %C | %t"
-b, --baudrate
Specify the baud rate, overriding the value given in the
configuration file.
-D, --device
Specify the device, overriding the value given in the
configuration file.
-O, --option
Set an option. The argument can be a single word, or a
key=value pair. Recognized options:
timestamp with values simple, delta, persecond, and extended.
If no value is given, 'simple' is selected.
-R, --remotecharset
Specify the character set of the remote system is using and
convert it to the character set of the local side. Example
might be 'latin1'.
-7, --7bit
7bit mode for terminals which aren't 8bit capable. 8bit is
default if the environment is configured for this via LANG or
LC_ALL, 7bit otherwise.
-8, --8bit
8bit characters pass through without any modification.
'Continuous' means no locate/attribute control sequences are
inserted without real change of locate/attribute. This mode
is to display 8bit multi-byte characters such as Japanese.
Not needed in every language with 8bit characters. (For
example displaying Finnish text doesn't need this.)
-h, --help
Display help and exit.
-v, --version
Print the minicom version.
When minicom starts, it first searches the MINICOM
environment variable for command-line arguments, which can be
over-ridden on the command line. Thus, if you have done
MINICOM='-m -c on'
export MINICOM
or the equivalent, and start minicom, minicom will assume
that your terminal has a Meta or <ALT> key and that color is
supported. If you then log in from a terminal without color
support, and you have set MINICOM in your startup (.profile
or equivalent) file, and don't want to re-set your
environment variable, you can type 'minicom -c off' and run
without color support for that session.
configuration
The configuration argument is more interesting. Normally,
minicom gets its defaults from a file called "minirc.dfl". If
you however give an argument to minicom, it will try to get
its defaults from a file called "minirc.configuration". So
it is possible to create multiple configuration files, for
different ports, different users etc. Most sensible is to use
device names, such as tty1, tty64, sio2 etc. If a user
creates their own configuration file, it will show up in
their home directory as ".minirc.dfl" or
".minirc.configuration".
Minicom is window based. To pop-up a window with the function you
want, press Control-A (from now on, we will use C-A to mean
Control-A), and then the function key (a-z or A-Z). By pressing C-
A first and then 'z', a help screen comes up with a short summary
of all commands. This escape key can be altered when minicom is
configured (-s option or C-A O), but we'll stick to Control-A for
now.
For every menu the next keys can be used:
UP arrow-up or 'k'
DOWN arrow-down or 'j'
LEFT arrow-left or 'h'
RIGHT arrow-right or 'l'
CHOOSE Enter
CANCEL ESCape.
The screen is divided into two portions: the upper 24 lines are
the terminal-emulator screen. In this window, ANSI or VT100 escape
sequences are interpreted. If there is a line left at the bottom,
a status line is placed there. If this is not possible the status
line will be showed every time you press C-A. On terminals that
have a special status line that will be used if the termcap
information is complete and the -k flag has been given.
Possible commands are listed next, in alphabetical order.
C-A Pressing C-A a second time will just send a C-A to the remote
system. If you have changed your "escape character" to
something other than C-A, this works analogously for that
character.
A Toggle 'Add Linefeed' on/off. If it is on, a linefeed is
added before every carriage return displayed on the screen.
B Gives you a scroll back buffer. You can scroll up with u,
down with d, a page up with b, a page down with f, and if you
have them the arrow and page up/page down keys can also be
used. You can search for text in the buffer with s (case-
sensitive) or S (case-insensitive). N will find the next
occurrence of the string. c will enter citation mode. A text
cursor appears and you specify the start line by hitting
Enter key. Then scroll back mode will finish and the contents
with prefix '>' will be sent.
C Clears the screen.
D Dial a number, or go to the dialing directory.
E Toggle local echo on and off (if your version of minicom
supports it).
F A break signal is sent to the modem.
G Run script (Go). Runs a login script.
H Hangup.
I Toggle the type of escape sequence that the cursor keys send
between normal and applications mode. (See also the comment
about the status line below).
J Jump to a shell. On return, the whole screen will be redrawn.
K Clears the screen, runs kermit and redraws the screen upon
return.
L Turn Capture file on off. If turned on, all output sent to
the screen will be captured in the file too.
M Sends the modem initialization string. If you are online and
the DCD line setting is on, you are asked for confirmation
before the modem is initialized.
N Toggle between timestamp modes to be added to the output.
Available are simple and extended time formats for each line,
a delta to the previous line, a time display each second and
no timestamps (the default).
O Configure minicom. Puts you in the configuration menu.
P Communication Parameters. Allows you to change the bps rate,
parity and number of bits.
Q Exit minicom without resetting the modem. If macros changed
and were not saved, you will have a chance to do so.
R Receive files. Choose from various protocols (external). If
you have the filename selection window and the prompt for
download directory enabled, you'll get a selection window for
choosing the directory for downloading. Otherwise the
download directory defined in the Filenames and paths menu
will be used.
S Send files. Choose the protocol like you do with the receive
command. If you don't have the filename selection window
enabled (in the File transfer protocols menu), you'll just
have to write the filename(s) in a dialog window. If you have
the selection window enabled, a window will pop up showing
the filenames in your upload directory. You can tag and untag
filenames by pressing spacebar, and move the cursor up and
down with the cursor keys or j/k. The selected filenames are
shown highlighted. Directory names are shown [within
brackets] and you can move up or down in the directory tree
by pressing the spacebar twice. Finally, send the files by
pressing ENTER or quit by pressing ESC.
T Choose Terminal emulation: Ansi(color) or vt100. You can
also change the backspace key here, turn the status line on
or off, and define delay (in milliseconds) after each newline
if you need that.
U Add carriage return to each received line.
W Toggle line-wrap on/off.
X Exit minicom, reset modem. If macros changed and were not
saved, you will have a chance to do so.
Y Paste a file. Reads a file and sends its contests just as if
it would be typed in.
Z Pop up the help screen.
By pressing C-A D the program puts you in the dialing directory.
Select a command by pressing the capitalized letter or moving
cursor right/left with the arrow keys or the h/l keys and pressing
Enter. You can add, delete or edit entries and move them up and
down in the directory list. By choosing "dial" the phone numbers
of the tagged entries, or if nothing is tagged, the number of the
highlighted entry will be dialed. While the modem is dialing, you
can press escape to cancel dialing. Any other key will close the
dial window, but won't cancel the dialing itself. Your dialing
directory will be saved into the file ".dialdir" in your home
directory. You can scroll up and down with the arrow keys, but
you can also scroll complete pages by pressing the PageUp or
PageDown key. If you don't have those, use Control-B (Backward)
and Control-F (Forward). You can use the space bar to tag a number
of entries and minicom will rotate trough this list if a
connection can't be made. A '>' symbol is drawn in the directory
before the names of the tagged entries.
The "edit" menu speaks for itself, but I will discuss it briefly
here.
A - Name
The name for this entry
B - Number
and its telephone number.
C - Dial string #
Which specific dial string you want to use to connect.
There are three different dial strings (prefixes and
suffixes) that can be configured in the Modem and dialing
menu.
D - Local echo
can be on or off for this system (if your version of
minicom supports it).
E - Script
The script that must be executed after a successful
connection is made (see the manual for runscript)
F - Username
The username that is passed to the runscript program. It
is passed in the environment string "$LOGIN".
G - Password
The password is passed as "$PASS".
H - Terminal Emulation
Use ANSI or VT100 emulation.
I - Backspace key sends
What code (Backspace or Delete) the backspace key sends.
J - Linewrap
Can be on or off.
K - Line settings
Bps rate, bits, parity and number of stop bits to use for
this connection. You can choose current for the speed, so
that it will use whatever speed is being used at that
moment (useful if you have multiple modems).
L - Conversion table
You may specify a character conversion table to be loaded
whenever this entry answers, before running the login
script. If this field is blank, the conversion table stays
unchanged.
The edit menu also shows the latest date and time when you called
this entry and the total number of calls there, but doesn't let
you change them. They are updated automatically when you connect.
The moVe command lets you move the highlighted entry up or down in
the dialing directory with the up/down arrow keys or the k and j
keys. Press Enter or ESC to end moving the entry.
By pressing C-A O you will be thrown into the setup menu.
Filenames and paths
This menu defines your default directories.
A - Download directory
where the downloaded files go to.
B - Upload directory
where the uploaded files are read from.
C - Script directory
Where you keep your login scripts.
D - Script program
Which program to use as the script interpreter. Defaults to
the program "runscript", but if you want to use something
else (eg, /bin/sh or "expect") it is possible. Stdin and
stdout are connected to the modem, stderr to the screen.
If the path is relative (ie, does not start with a slash)
then it's relative to your home directory, except for the
script interpreter.
E - Kermit program
Where to find the executable for kermit, and it's options.
Some simple macro's can be used on the command line: '%l'
is expanded to the complete filename of the dial out-
device, '%f' is expanded to the serial port file descriptor
and '%b' is expanded to the current serial port speed.
F - Logging options
Options to configure the logfile writing.
A - File name
Here you can enter the name of the logfile. The file
will be written in your home directory, and the
default value is "minicom.log". If you blank the
name, all logging is turned off.
B - Log connects and hangups
This option defines whether or not the logfile is
written when the remote end answers the call or hangs
up. Or when you give the hangup command yourself or
leave minicom without hangup while online.
C - Log file transfers
Do you want log entries of receiving and sending
files.
The 'log' command in the scripts is not affected by logging
options B and C. It is always executed, if you just have the
name of the log file defined.
File Transfer Protocols
Protocols defined here will show up when C-A s/r is pressed.
"Name" in the beginning of the line is the name that will show
up in the menu. "Program" is the path to the protocol. "Name"
after that defines if the program needs an argument, e.g. a file
to be transmitted. U/D defines if this entry should show up in
the upload or the download menu. Fullscr defines if the program
should run full screen, or that minicom will only show it's
stderr in a window. IO-Red defines if minicom should attach the
program's standard in and output to the modem port or not.
"Multi" tells the filename selection window whether or not the
protocol can send multiple files with one command. It has no
effect on download protocols, and it is also ignored with upload
protocols if you don't use the filename selection window. The
old sz and rz are not full screen, and have IO-Red set. However,
there are curses based versions of at least rz that do not want
their stdin and stdout redirected, and run full screen. All
file transfer protocols are run with the UID of the user, and
not with UID=root. '%l', '%f' and '%b' can be used on the
command line as with kermit. Within this menu you can also
define if you want to use the filename selection window when
prompted for files to upload, and if you like to be prompted for
the download directory every time the automatic download is
started. If you leave the download directory prompt disabled,
the download directory defined in the file and directory menu is
used.
Serial port setup
A - Serial device
/dev/tty1 or /dev/ttyS1 for most people. /dev/cua<n> is
still possible under GNU/Linux, but no longer recommended
as these devices are obsolete and many systems with kernel
2.2.x or newer don't have them. Use /dev/ttyS<n> instead.
You may also have /dev/modem as a symlink to the real
device.
If you have modems connected to two or more serial ports,
you may specify all of them here in a list separated by
space, comma or semicolon. When Minicom starts, it checks
the list until it finds an available modem and uses that
one. (However, you can't specify different init strings to
them... at least not yet.)
To use a UNIX socket for communication the device name must
be prefixed with "unix#" following by the full path and the
filename of the socket. Minicom will then try to connect
to this socket as a client. As long as it cannot connect to
the socket it stays 'offline'. As soon as the connection
establishes, minicom goes 'online'. If the server closes
the socket, minicom switches to 'offline' again.
B - Lock file location
On most systems This should be /usr/spool/uucp. GNU/Linux
systems use /var/lock. If this directory does not exist,
minicom will not attempt to use lockfiles.
C - Callin program
If you have a uugetty or something on your serial port, it
could be that you want a program to be run to switch the
modem cq. port into dialin/dialout mode. This is the
program to get into dialin mode.
D - Callout program
And this to get into dialout mode.
E - Bps/Par/Bits
Default parameters at startup.
If one of the entries is left blank, it will not be used. So if
you don't care about locking, and don't have a getty running on
your modemline, entries B - D should be left blank.
Modem and Dialing
Here, the parameters for your modem are defined. I will not
explain this further because the defaults are for generic Hayes
modems, and should work always. This file is not a Hayes
tutorial :-) The only things worth noticing are that control
characters can be sent by prefixing them with a '^', in which
'^^' means '^' itself, and the '\' character must also be
doubled as '\\', because backslash is used specially in the
macro definitions. Some options however, don't have much to do
with the modem but more with the behaviour of minicom itself:
M - Dial time
The number of seconds before minicom times out if no
connection is established.
N - Delay before redial
Minicom will redial if no connection was made, but it first
waits some time.
O - Number of tries
Maximum number of times that minicom attempts to dial.
P - Drop DTR time
If you set this to 0, minicom hangs up by sending a Hayes-
type hangup sequence. If you specify a non-zero value, the
hangup will be done by dropping the DTR line. The value
tells in seconds how long DTR will be kept down.
Q - Auto bps detect
If this is on, minicom tries to match the dialed party's
speed. With most modern modems this is NOT desirable,
since the modem buffers the data and converts the speed.
R - Modem has DCD line
If your modem, and your O/S both support the DCD line (that
goes 'high' when a connection is made) minicom will use it.
When you have this option on, minicom will also NOT start
dialing while you are already online.
S - Status line shows DTE speed / line speed
You can toggle the status line to show either the DTE speed
(the speed which minicom uses to communicate with your
modem) or the line speed (the speed that your modem uses on
the line to communicate with the other modem). Notice that
the line speed may change during the connection, but you
will still only see the initial speed that the modems
started the connection with. This is because the modem
doesn't tell the program if the speed is changed. Also, to
see the line speed, you need to have the modem set to show
it in the connect string. Otherwise you will only see 0 as
the line speed.
T - Multi-line untag
You can toggle the feature to untag entries from the
dialing directory when a connection is established to a
multi-line BBS. All the tagged entries that have the same
name are untagged.
Note that a special exception is made for this menu: every
user can change all parameters here, but some of them will
not be saved.
Screen and keyboard
A - Command key is
the 'Hot Key' that brings you into command mode. If this is
set to 'ALT' or 'meta key', you can directly call commands
by alt-key instead of HotKey-key.
B - Backspace key sends
There still are some systems that want a VT100 to send DEL
instead of BS. With this option you can enable that
stupidity. (Eh, it's even on by default...)
C - Status line is
Enabled or disabled. Some slow terminals (for example, X-
terminals) cause the status line to jump "up and down" when
scrolling, so you can turn it off if desired. It will still
be shown in command-mode.
D - Alarm sound
If turned on, minicom will sound an alarm (on the console
only) after a successful connection and when up/downloading
is complete.
E - Foreground Color (menu)
indicates the foreground color to use for all the
configuration windows in minicom.
F - Background Color (menu)
indicates the background color to use for all the
configuration windows in minicom. Note that minicom will
not allow you to set foreground and background colors to
the same value.
G - Foreground Color (term)
indicates the foreground color to use in the terminal
window.
H - Background Color (term)
indicates the background color to use in the terminal
window. Note that minicom will not allow you to set
foreground and background colors to the same value.
I - Foreground Color (stat)
indicates the foreground color to use in for the status
bar.
J - Background Color (stat)
indicates the color to use in for the status bar. Note that
minicom will allow you to set the status bar's foreground
and background colors to the same value. This will
effectively make the status bar invisible but if these are
your intentions, please see the option
K - History buffer size
The number of lines to keep in the history buffer (for
backscrolling).
L - Macros file
is the full path to the file that holds macros. Macros
allow you to define a string to be sent when you press a
certain key. In minicom, you may define F1 through F12 to
send up to 256 characters [this is set at compile time].
The filename you specify is verified as soon as you hit
ENTER. If you do not have permissions to create the
specified file, an error message will so indicate and you
will be forced to re-edit the filename. If you are
permitted to create the file, minicom checks to see if it
already exists. If so, it assumes it's a macro file and
reads it in. If it isn't, well, it's your problem :-) If
the file does not exist, the filename is accepted.
M - Edit Macros
opens up a new window which allows you to edit the F1
through F12 macros.
N - Macros enabled
- Yes or No. If macros are disabled, the F1-F12 keys will
just send the VT100/VT220 function key escape sequences.
O - Character conversion
The active conversion table filename is shown here. If you
can see no name, no conversion is active. Pressing O, you
will see the conversion table edit menu.
Edit Macros
Here, the macros for F1 through F12 are defined. The
bottom of the window shows a legend of character
combinations that have special meaning. They allow you
to enter special control characters with plain text by
prefixing them with a '^', in which '^^' means '^'
itself. You can send a 1 second delay with the '^~'
code. This is useful when you are trying to login after
ftp'ing or telnet'ing somewhere. You can also include
your current username and password from the phone
directory in the macros with '\u' and '\p',
respectively. If you need the backslash character in the
macro, write it doubled as '\\'. To edit a macro, press
the shown number or letter and you will be moved to the
end of the macro. When editing the line, you may use the
left & right arrows, Home & End keys, Delete &
BackSpace, and ESC and RETURN. ESC cancels any changes
made while ENTER accepts the changes.
Character conversion
Here you can edit the character conversion table. If you
are not an American, you know that in many languages
there are characters that are not included in the ASCII
character set, and in the old times they may have
replaced some less important characters in ASCII and now
they are often represented with character codes above
127. AND there are various different ways to represent
them. This is where you may edit conversion tables for
systems that use a character set different from the one
on your computer.
A - Load table
You probably guessed it. This command loads a table
from the disk. You are asked a file name for the
table. Predefined tables .mciso, .mcpc8 and .mcsf7
should be included with the program. Table .mciso does
no conversion, .mcpc8 is to be used for connections
with systems that use the 8-bit pc character set, and
.mcsf7 is for compatibility with the systems that uses
the good old 7-bit coding to replace the characters
{|}[]\ with the diacritical characters used in Finnish
and Swedish.
B - Save table
This one saves the active table on the filename you
specify.
C - edit char
This is where you can make your own modifications to
the existing table. First you are asked the character
value (in decimal) whose conversion you want to
change. Next you'll say which character you want to
see on your screen when that character comes from the
outside world. And then you'll be asked what you want
to be sent out when you enter that character from your
keyboard.
D - next screen
E - prev screen
Yeah, you probably noticed that this screen shows you
what kind of conversions are active. The screen just
is (usually) too small to show the whole table at once
in an easy-to-understand format. This is how you can
scroll the table left and right.
F - convert capture
Toggles whether or not the character conversion table
is used when writing the capture file.
Save setup as dfl
Save the parameters as the default for the next time the program
is started. Instead of dfl, any other parameter name may appear,
depending on which one was used when the program was started.
Save setup as..
Save the parameters under a special name. Whenever Minicom is
started with this name as an argument, it will use these
parameters. This option is of course privileged to root.
Exit
Escape from this menu without saving. This can also be done
with ESC.
Exit from minicom
Only root will see this menu entry, if he/she started minicom
with the '-s' option. This way, it is possible to change the
configuration without actually running minicom.
The status line has several indicators, that speak for themselves.
The mysterious APP or NOR indicator probably needs explanation.
The VT100 cursor keys can be in two modes: applications mode and
cursor mode. This is controlled by an escape sequence. If you find
that the cursor keys do not work in, say, vi when you're logged in
using minicom then you can see with this indicator whether the
cursor keys are in applications or cursor mode. You can toggle the
two with the C-A I key. If the cursor keys then work, it's
probably an error in the remote system's termcap initialization
strings (is).
Minicom has support for local languages. This means you can change
most of the English messages and other strings to another language
by setting the environment variable LANG.
If minicom is hung, kill it with SIGTERM . (This means kill -15,
or since sigterm is default, just plain "kill <minicompid>". This
will cause a graceful exit of minicom, doing resets and
everything. You may kill minicom from a script with the command
"! killall -9 minicom" without hanging up the line. Without the -9
parameter, minicom first hangs up before exiting.
Since a lot of escape sequences begin with ESC (Arrow up is ESC [
A), Minicom does not know if the escape character it gets is you
pressing the escape key, or part of a sequence.
An old version of Minicom, V1.2, solved this in a rather crude
way: to get the escape key, you had to press it twice.
As of release 1.3 this has bettered a little: now a 1-second
timeout is builtin, like in vi. For systems that have the select()
system call the timeout is 0.5 seconds. And... surprise: a special
Linux-dependent hack :-) was added. Now, minicom can separate the
escape key and escape-sequences. To see how dirty this was done,
look into wkeys.c. But it works like a charm!
Minicom keeps it's configuration files in one directory, usually
/var/lib/minicom, /usr/local/etc or /etc. To find out what default
directory minicom has compiled in, issue the command minicom -h.
You'll probably also find the demo files for runscript(1), and the
examples of character conversion tables either there or in the
subdirectories of /usr/doc/minicom*. The conversion tables are
named something like mc.* in that directory, but you probably want
to copy the ones you need in your home directory as something
beginning with a dot.
minirc.*
$HOME/.minirc.*
$HOME/.dialdir
$HOME/minicom.log
/usr/share/locale/*/LC_MESSAGES/minicom.mo
runscript(1)
Please report any bugs to minicom-devel@alioth-lists.debian.net.
Thank you!
The original author of minicom is Miquel van Smoorenburg
(miquels@cistron.nl). He wrote versions up to 1.75.
Jukka Lahtinen (walker@netsonic.fi, jukkal@despammed.com) has been
responsible for new versions since 1.78, helped by some other
people, including:
filipg@paranoia.com wrote the History buffer searching to 1.79.
Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo (acme@conectiva.com.br) did the
internationalization and the Brazilian Portuguese translations.
Jim Seymour (jseymour@jimsun.LinxNet.com) wrote the multiple modem
support and the filename selection window used since 1.80.
Tomohiro Kubota (kubota@debian.or.jp) wrote the Japanese
translations and the citation facility, and did some fixes.
Gael Queri (gqueri@mail.dotcom.fr) wrote the French translations.
Arkadiusz Miskiewicz (misiek@pld.org.pl) wrote the Polish
translations.
Kim Soyoung (nexti@chollian.net) wrote the Korean translations.
Jork Loeser (jork.loeser@inf.tu-dresden.de) provided the socket
extension.
Most of this man page is copied, with corrections, from the
original minicom README, but some pieces and the corrections are
by Michael K. Johnson.
Jukka Lahtinen (walker@netsonic.fi) has added some information of
the changes made after version 1.75.
Adam Lackorzynski (adam@lackorzynski.de) is the current maintainer
of minicom.
This page is part of the minicom (a serial communication program)
project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨https://salsa.debian.org/minicom-team/minicom⟩. If you have a bug
report for this manual page, send it to adam@lackorzynski.de.
This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://salsa.debian.org/minicom-team/minicom⟩ on 2025-08-11.
(At that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found
in the repository was 2025-07-16.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
User's Manual Dec 2013 MINICOM(1)
Pages that refer to this page: ascii-xfr(1), runscript(1), xminicom(1)
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