If you like playing with Arduino devices, like I do, you need to have serial port access. These days the easiest way to do that is over USB. Under Fedora 11, If you plug in an FTDI FT232R uart in order to get serial access over USB, the resulting device could show up with these permissions:
# ls -al /dev/ttyUSB* crw-rw----. 1 root dialout 188, 0 2009-05-03 10:24 /dev/ttyUSB0
To actually have access to the device, the user must become a member of the dialout group. Once you add yourself to the group, you log out and log in and access is magically granted.
This restriction is not consistent with how Fedora 10 works. I didn't have this problem there.
For context, here are the kernel messages I got when I plugged in the device:
May 3 10:24:15 deafeng3 kernel: usb 6-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2 May 3 10:24:16 deafeng3 kernel: usb 6-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0403, idProduct=6001 May 3 10:24:16 deafeng3 kernel: usb 6-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3 May 3 10:24:16 deafeng3 kernel: usb 6-1: Product: FT232R USB UART May 3 10:24:16 deafeng3 kernel: usb 6-1: Manufacturer: FTDI May 3 10:24:16 deafeng3 kernel: usb 6-1: SerialNumber: A8007UF2 May 3 10:24:16 deafeng3 kernel: usb 6-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice May 3 10:24:16 deafeng3 kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial May 3 10:24:16 deafeng3 kernel: USB Serial support registered for generic May 3 10:24:16 deafeng3 kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic May 3 10:24:16 deafeng3 kernel: usbserial: USB Serial Driver core May 3 10:24:16 deafeng3 kernel: USB Serial support registered for FTDI USB Serial Device May 3 10:24:16 deafeng3 kernel: ftdi_sio 6-1:1.0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter detected May 3 10:24:16 deafeng3 kernel: usb 6-1: Detected FT232RL May 3 10:24:16 deafeng3 kernel: usb 6-1: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0 May 3 10:24:16 deafeng3 kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver ftdi_sio May 3 10:24:16 deafeng3 kernel: ftdi_sio: v1.4.3:USB FTDI Serial Converters Driver May 3 10:24:16 deafeng3 NetworkManager: <info> (ttyUSB0): ignoring due to lack of mobile broadband capabilties May 3 10:37:14 deafeng3 yum: Installed: avrdude-5.5-4.fc11.x86_64 May 3 10:47:06 deafeng3 pcscd: winscard.c:309:SCardConnect() Reader E-Gate 0 0 Not Found May 3 10:47:06 deafeng3 pcscd: winscard.c:309:SCardConnect() Reader E-Gate 0 0 Not Found May 3 10:47:06 deafeng3 pcscd: winscard.c:309:SCardConnect() Reader E-Gate 0 0 Not Found May 3 10:47:06 deafeng3 pcscd: winscard.c:309:SCardConnect() Reader E-Gate 0 0 Not Found
Thanks
Bob