More Zonkyness

Unfortunately, the serial communication program I tend to use (kermit) appears to have not been updated in quite a while. Which in some ways is reasonable (it’s a very old program and probably does not need much work), understandable (the main developer is no longer employed to make it work), but is somewhat frustrating when it no longer compiles.

To get it to work on my latest system :-

1. Download the cku302.tar.gz source code and unpack.
2. Try the first compile with make linux KFLAGS=-DNOARROWKEYS (losing the arrow keys is unfortunate but not fatal unless you’re in command mode far too long).
3. If that doesn’t compile with zillions of undefined references to curses sounding functions (printw, stdscr, wmove, etc.) then scroll up to the top of the errors where the final command to “compile” all the objects into a final binary is available. Paste that command and add a “-lncurses” :-

$ gcc  -o wermit \
      ckcmai.o ckclib.o ckutio.o ckufio.o \
      ckcfns.o ckcfn2.o ckcfn3.o ckuxla.o \
      ckcpro.o ckucmd.o ckuus2.o ckuus3.o \
      ckuus4.o ckuus5.o ckuus6.o ckuus7.o \
      ckuusx.o ckuusy.o ckuusr.o ckucns.o \
      ckudia.o ckuscr.o ckcnet.o ckusig.o \
      ckctel.o ckcuni.o ckupty.o ckcftp.o \
      ckuath.o ck_crp.o ck_ssl.o -lutil -lresolv -lcrypt -lncurses -lm

The final output of “wermit” just needs to be stripped, moved to a proper location, and renamed :-

$ strip wermit
$ sudo mv wermit /opt/bin/kermit

And there it seems to work fine.

Of course this is not a proper fix, and we are missing a lot of features but it is at least working. And saves me from having to struggle with minicom, screen, or cu.