Description

linbar is a driver for barcode readers connected on serial  ports.
Actually it reads from the specified device and puts any characters to the keyboard buffer of a Linux console. It works only for the Linux console ttys.

Of course you can use it for many proposes (let say to control the console with a serial port), but the primary thought was for reading barcode labels.
(For the history : my plane was to have about 10 POS diskless Linux terminals -boot to Linux with a bootdisk, rlogin to server- with barcode readers on them. What a speed !!!!. That was 1997, 1998 and we used to make our own mini-linux bootable floppies :) )

You can use any serial port , and you can also have multiply readers the same time.

Linbar  is (C) 1998-2003  Ioannis Ioannou  , and it is released under the conditions of GPL  version 2 or later.
 
 

Usage
 
linbar [parameters] [&]
              Optional parameters are :

                  -T output tty       default /dev/tty0
                  -t input tty        default /dev/ttyS0
                  -s speed            default 9600
                  -d data bits        default 8
                  -p parity           default N(one)
                  -b stop bits        default 1
                  -c cut off cr       default no
                  -n cut off nl       default no
                  -l log messages     default no
                  -D enable debug messages
                  -h this help screen
 

for example :

        barcode reader at ttyS0, 9600 8N1

                    linbar &

        barcode reader (?) at ttyS1 38400 7E2

                    linbar -t /dev/ttyS1 -s 38400 -d 7 -p E -b 2 &

        debug the driver (note that it runs in the foreground)

                    linbar -D
 

Where to get it
 

This link always points to the latest version  (currently 0.5)  :  http://www.roryt.gr/linbar/linbar.zip
Arrrg!!!! My hosting server keeps deleting the zip file!!! Email me if you really need it!!


There used to be Contrib directory - with an X linbar version for xterm, contributed by Simon Falvey, but after many years I lost it. Maybe if you Google it you can find it in an old mirror of argeas.cs-net.gr

0.5 NOTES :
  Mainly a bug fix release, no consept changes from 0.4.
  Sorry but I don't have time for linbar, and since 1999 I have stoped working with projects that use bar-code readers. As the matter of fact these days (in the case I had time) I would re-wrote the hole thing in perl without linserial and g++ - anyway....
 
 
Maintainer
 
Send comments, patches etc. to  I.Ioannou
              PLS. Don't ask me to recomment to you barcode readers, barcode decoding programms, etc. I don't know anything about.

NOTES
 

1. It uses the TIOCSTI call to pass the characters into the keyboard buffer, so it must be run by root (or suid root).
2. Starting, exiting and any problems are NO MORE (since version 0.3) logged as LOG_DAEMON thru the syslog by default. I  have noticed a drammatical decrease in the speed , so if you realy need this option you have to define it in the command line (option -l).
3. I haven't search for any security flaws. The program must be run suid root, so be careful.
4. It uses a modified version of libSerial library made by Linas Vepstas . The library sources are included.
BTW we all thank you Linus :-)
I.Ioannou

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