Re: wrong number of serial port detected

["Jason Dravet" <dravet@hotmail.com>]

>From: Russell King <rmk+lkml@arm.linux.org.uk>
>To: Jason Dravet <dravet@hotmail.com>
>CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
>Subject: Re: wrong number of serial port detected
>Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 15:50:34 +0000
>
>On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 09:44:29AM -0600, Jason Dravet wrote:
> > So I ask this mailing list Can the kernel detect the proper number of
> > serial ports or not?
>
>It does detect serial ports found in the machine.
>
>However, it _always_ offers the configured number of serial devices.
>This is to allow folk whose ports are not autodetected to configure
>them appropriately via the setserial command.  If they were not
>available, they could not configure them.
>
Then may I ask how XP does it?  I have to dual boot between XP and Fedora.  
When I go into XP's device manager I see all of the appropriate hardware 
listed, no extra serial ports.  When I boot into Fedora and go into /dev, I 
see the same hardware except I have 32 serial ports and 64 tty nodes (tty is 
for virtual terminals right?).  How can 1 OS show the correct number and 
another show the wrong number?  I ask so I can better understand what is 
going on.

Thanks,
Jason