Ubuntu, Minicom & Cisco

Install Minicom

Find the name of your serial port
Next, you need to find out is which device your serial (including the USB adapter) ports are mapped to. The easiest way to do this is to connect the console cable to a running Cisco device. Now open up a Terminal using "Applications > Accessories > Terminal" and type this command:

dmesg | grep tty

The output will look something like one of these:

[    0.788856] serial8250: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
[    0.789144] 00:08: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
[94023.461242] usb 2-1: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[107561.131086] type=1503 audit(1260922689.994:33): operation="open" pid=27195 parent=27185 profile="/usr/sbin/cupsd" requested_mask="w::" denied_mask="w::" fsuid=0 ouid=0 name="/dev/ttyUSB0

Look in this output for words that contain "tty". In this case, it is "ttyS0". That means the name of the device that corresponds to your serial port is "ttyS0". The name of your device that corresponds to your USB port has a definition of name="/dev/ttyUSB0" (make sure it's plugged in). Now we are ready to configure Minicom to use this information.

Configure Minicom

Open a terminal using "Applications > Accessories > Terminal". Now type this command to enter the configuration menu of Minicom:

sudo minicom -s

Use the keyboard arrow keys to select the menu item labeled "Serial Port Setup" and then hit "Enter". Here is what I had to change:

Change the line speed (press E) & change to "9600"

Change the hardware flow control (press F) & change to "No"

Change the serial device (press A) & change to "/dev/ttyS0"

Or to use your USB port, change the serial device to "/dev/ttyUSB0"

Be sure to use the device name that you learned with the grep output.
Once your screen looks like mine, you can hit "Escape" to go back to the main menu. Next, you need to select "Save setup as dfl" and hit "Enter" to save these settings to the default profile. Then select "Exit Minicom" to exit Minicom...

To find out if you have configured Minicom correctly, type this command in the terminal:

sudo minicom

After entering your sudo user password, you should be connected to your Cisco device.

Once inside, press Ctrl+A, to access minicom commands. Press 'Ctrl+A', then 'Z' to access help. Ctrl-A, then another letter, like 'X' & you will eXit. Help will show a list of available commands.