serial_install(9)

🦋 serial_install(9) — okay bestie, let’s install a tty 🦋

This is the serial_install(9) page from the Kernel API Manual, and it’s giving “tiny but iconic kernel function” energy. No cap. ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

serial_install — install tty. That’s literally the whole name, and honestly? Slay.

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

Here’s the signature, character-for-character, fr fr:

int serial_install (struct tty_driver *driver , struct tty_struct *tty
);

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🎀 ARGUMENTS 🎀

• driver — the driver (USB in our case). Like, yes, that driver. And USB is the case here.
• tty — the tty being created. The brand-new tty, main character energy only.

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

Okay so picture this: serial_install initialises the termios structure for this tty. We use the default USB serial settings, but they’re not locked in forever — they can be overridden by serial->type->init_termios on first open. Lowkey flexible, highkey useful. 💖

This is literally the first place a new tty gets used. So this is where we acquire references to the usb_serial structure and the driver module, and where we store a pointer to the port. All of those actions are reversed in serial_cleanup. Periodt, the cleanup girlies handle it. 🫶

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

Kernel file ./drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c, plus the whole friend group:

• serial_port_shutdown(9)
• serial_cleanup(9)
• __usb_serial_register_drivers(9)
• usb_serial_deregister_drivers(9)

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That’s the whole page, bestie 💜 — it comes from ./drivers/usb/serial, dated October 2026, and it’s serial_install(9) from the Kernel API Manual. bye 🫶