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Terminal Program Configuration

doc/guides/misc/terminal_config.md

2026.10-devel1.6 KB
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Background

This page explains how to configure some popular terminal programs for correct display of newlines when using the serial interface of a RIOT powered device. When printing something using stdio (e.g., printf("Hello World!\n");, RIOT sends a line feed character (0xA) as \n (newline).

Some terminals need more, for example, a carriage return and a line feed character (0x0D, 0x0A). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline for background.

This page tries to collect the necessary settings for common terminal programs that will make them correctly display newlines.

GTKTerm

  • Graphical method:
    • Open the configuration menu.
    • Click on CR LF auto.
  • Manual method:
    • Edit the file ~/.gtktermrc.
    • Change value of crlfauto option to True.

Minicom

  • Interactive method:
    • Press Ctrl+A u.
  • Manual method:
    • Edit the configuration file (~/.minirc.dfl per default).
    • Add the following line: pu addcarreturn Yes

Miniterm

  • Generic method:
    • Start with --eol CR parameter.
  • Via RIOT build system:
    • RIOT_TERMINAL=miniterm make term

:::note You can install miniterm by installing pyserial. The preferred method for most Linux distributions is to install python3-serial with your package manager. If that is not possible or desired, you can also install pyserial with pipx. :::

picocom

  • Generic method:
    • Start with --imap lfcrlf parameter.
  • Via RIOT build system:
    • RIOT_TERMINAL=picocom make term

PuTTY

  • Graphical method:
    • Go to configuration tree and choose Terminal branch.
    • Enable option Implicit CR in every LF.