usb-serial port driver?

[jur]

I have a Prolific usb-to-serial port adapter. How do I go about getting the laptop to recognise there is a serial port available?

I have done the following already:

1. On the Prolific site, they make the claim that drivers for this device have been included in the linux kernel since 2.4. So it would appear that just plugging it would be sufficient, ie plug and play.

2. I have looked at available extensions and noted and loaded extension usb-serial-tinycore-2.6.33.3. I plugged in the device afterwards.

3. I ran a work win program in wine that needs to use this serial port, it claims there is no port available.

4.

Code: [Select]

tc@box:~$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0020  
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0c45:6419 Microdia
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0020  
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 067b:2303 Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port
tc@box:~$

Help?

[jur]

I have further done:

Code: [Select]

tc@box:~/.wine/dosdevices$ sudo ln -s /dev/ttyUSB0 com1
tc@box:~/.wine/dosdevices$ ll
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx    1 tc       staff           10 May  3 20:16 c: -> ../drive_c/
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     staff           12 Jun  4 09:15 com1 -> /dev/ttyUSB0
lrwxrwxrwx    1 tc       staff            1 May  3 20:16 z: -> //
tc@box:~/.wine/dosdevices$

The program still fails.

Is there some other way I could use to verify the serial port actually exists?

[curaga]

dmesg output after plugging it in.