Where Is The AVRISP USB Programmer When I Plug It In?

[Robert L Cochran]

I have an AVRISP programmer bought from an Ebay merchant. It is a USB 
device and connects to my FC5 machine's USB ports on one end and the 
Atmel device I wish to program at the other end (using a 10-pin IDC 
cable intended for in-system programming.) I'm using avrdude to move my 
code to the AVR device. The problem seems to be avrdude can't find the 
programmer. I could be wrong about this. Here are the /var/log/messages 
output I get when I plug the AVRISP into a USB port:

Jan  5 17:01:29 bobcp4 kernel: usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using 
ohci_hcd and address 4
Jan  5 17:01:29 bobcp4 kernel: usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 
choice
Jan  5 17:01:29 bobcp4 kernel: usbcore: registered new driver usbserial
Jan  5 17:01:29 bobcp4 kernel: drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB 
Serial support registered for generic
Jan  5 17:01:29 bobcp4 kernel: usbcore: registered new driver 
usbserial_generic
Jan  5 17:01:29 bobcp4 kernel: drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB 
Serial Driver core
Jan  5 17:01:29 bobcp4 kernel: drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB 
Serial support registered for cp2101
Jan  5 17:01:29 bobcp4 kernel: cp2101 1-1:1.0: cp2101 converter detected
Jan  5 17:01:29 bobcp4 kernel: usb 1-1: reset full speed USB device 
using ohci_hcd and address 4
Jan  5 17:01:29 bobcp4 kernel: usb 1-1: cp2101 converter now attached to 
ttyUSB0
Jan  5 17:01:29 bobcp4 kernel: usbcore: registered new driver cp2101
Jan  5 17:01:29 bobcp4 kernel: drivers/usb/serial/cp2101.c: Silicon Labs 
CP2101/CP2102 RS232 serial adaptor driver v0.07


Here is what avrdude tells me when I try to program my AVR chip:

[rlc at bobcp4 hw]$ avrdude -c avrisp -P /dev/ttyUSB0 -p m128 -U 
flash:w:hw.hex -v -v -v -v

avrdude: Version 5.2, compiled on Dec 15 2006 at 11:30:09
         Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/

         System wide configuration file is "/usr/local/etc/avrdude.conf"
         User configuration file is "/home/rlc/.avrduderc"
         User configuration file does not exist or is not a regular 
file, skipping

         Using Port            : /dev/ttyUSB0
         Using Programmer      : avrisp
avrdude: Send: 0 [30]   [20]
avrdude: Send: 0 [30]   [20]
avrdude: Send: 0 [30]   [20]
avrdude: ser_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: Send: Q [51]   [20]
avrdude: ser_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding


The output of mount is

[root at bobcp4 ~]# mount
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 on / type ext3 (rw)
/dev/proc on /proc type proc (rw)
/dev/sys on /sys type sysfs (rw)
/dev/devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
/dev/sda1 on /boot type ext3 (rw)
/dev/shm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)
sunrpc on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)
automount(pid2437) on /net type autofs 
(rw,fd=4,pgrp=2437,minproto=2,maxproto=4)
nfsd on /proc/fs/nfsd type nfsd (rw)


Can anyone offer suggestions that would let avrdude find the programmer? 
I can provide photographs of the programmer on request. I have turned 
off iptables and stopped it to test this issue. Also, /dev/ttyUSB0 has 
been made world writable, again for testing purposes. No luck. I've 
checked the avr-chat mailing list and I saw one suggestion that I change 
how udev treats the device, but I'm not sure it applies here. Clearly I 
seem to be missing something -- a device driver?


Thanks

Bob Cochran
Greenbelt, Maryland, USA