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tio

Serial device terminal — the modern replacement for screen on a TTY

What it does

Opens a terminal session on a serial device. It reconnects automatically when the device disappears and comes back, and it does not take over the whole terminal the way a full-screen program does.

Why you would want it

It is the least painful way to talk to a badge, a Meshtastic node or any microcontroller board. The automatic reconnect matters more than it sounds: a board being reflashed drops off the bus and returns, and tio simply picks the session back up where screen or minicom would have exited.

Before it will work

Membership of the dialout group, which the hardware catalog's device entries request. Group membership does not apply to a session already open — log out and back in.

How it installs

  • apt: tio

Known problems

ModemManager grabs new serial devices on many desktops and holds them for roughly twenty seconds, which looks exactly like a dead board. The generated udev rules tag known devices so ModemManager ignores them.

Keeping it current

  • probe: apt policy
  • strategy: apt_upgrade

Source: catalog/packages/tio.yaml