# Serial Communication Help

**URL:** <https://forums.openmv.io/t/serial-communication-help/482>\
**Category:** OpenMV Boards\
**Created:** [November 11, 2017, 7:01pm UTC](https://forums.openmv.io/t/serial-communication-help/482 "2017-11-11T19:01:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ZeeMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/5e9695/32.png) [@ZeeMan](https://forums.openmv.io/u/ZeeMan)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 7:01pm UTC](https://forums.openmv.io/t/serial-communication-help/482/1 "2017-11-11T19:01:22Z")

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Hi all, I was wondering if anyone could explain to me some things about serial communication. I have zero experience with any form of serial data transfer but my use case for the OpenMV requires me to either use serial over USB, RS-232, or I2C. I initially assumed that serial over USB through the USB\_VCP class would be the easiest option, but I can’t find anything on how to read in the data from a virtual serial port on Linux. I am able to just cat \> /dev/ttyACM0 but its just a stream of data and I want to only read the last line at any one point. I would appreciate some advice on either how to properly communicate over serial on Linux or a better alternative. Thanks.