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yep i agree.

What I don't understand is you should not have seen 5i25 as an option without the firmware installed.

is that what happenned?

In the mean time did you confirm the sserial tabs do come up for you? Thanks

I did see the 5i25 option even though there was no firmware files. Heres a screen shot showing that /lib/firmware/hm2/5i25 is empty and that pncconf still provides a 5i25 option. There are some warning thrown in the shell from pncconf.

I got some smart serial tabs (although I don't really know what to do with them)

Ok thanks. Yes if the 5i25 folder is there but no firmware is in it, then pncconf would not catch that.
Did you add the 5i25 folder or did it come with the rest of the hostmot2 firmware. (it didn't used to come with them)

don't worry about those warnings.

The sserial tab1 (and 4 if you have two 7i77 cards) has the analog (pwm) output selections.
tab 0 (and 3 for two 7i77 cards) select the 7i77's I/O points.

Thanks for testing that for me.

I think you're right. I'm a little overwhelmed with the ways of getting things installed in linux. I just attempted to update linuxcnc with synaptic package manager but unfortunately it said it wasn't able to retrieve the package "something wicked" happened. I guess I'll try again tomorrow. Thanks guys.
Max