How do I connect to a terminal to a serial-to-USB device on Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat)?

First check with dmesg | grep tty if system recognize your adapter. Then try to run minicom with sudo minicom -s, go to "Serial port setup" and change the first line to /dev/ttyUSB0.

Don't forget to save config as default with "Save setup as dfl". It works for me on Ubuntu 11.04 on VirtualBox.

You will need to set the permissions every time you plug the converter in. I use PuTTY to connect. In order to do so, I have created a little Bash script to sort out the permissions and launch PuTTY:

#!/bin/bash
sudo chmod 666 /dev/ttyUSB0

putty

P.S. I would never recommend that permissions are set to 777.

The serial port communication programs moserial or gtkterm provide an easy way to check connectivity and modify /dev/ttyUSB0 (or /dev/ttyUSB1!) settings. Even though there maybe only a single USB to RS232 adapter, the n designation /dev/ttyUSBn can and does change periodically! Both moserial and gtkterm will show what port designation is relevant in their respective pull down menus when selecting an appropriate port to use.

Check out help.ubuntu.com/community/Minicom for details on minicom.