Serial Communication USB bootable linux

Hey guys,

Im an IT student at university and am currently involved in a research project. It invovles programming a hexapod robot. I have a Colibri Evaluation board with windows CE installed on it which comes with a version of embedded C\C++. What needs to occur is the sending of ascii characters over the serial connection. Have been trying to write the connection in the embedded C
C++ however am having troubles. So I have an idea but im not sure that its theoretically correct.

Seeing as tho it seems easy to write to serial ports in linux could you guys see any potential problems with using a USB bootable version of Linux. Booting the USB Linux on the colibri board instead of Windows CE and then downloading the free gcc compiler for C and writing a Serial connection using that? Sorry if this question is a bit noobie but am very frustrated with the serial connection not working in windows CE atm.

I am currently using a knoppix 5.1 USB stick distro. It seems to have gcc (and VIM), which is all you need.

I just tries it out with this:

#include <stdio.h>

main(){
FILE *foo;

foo=fopen("/dev/ttyS0","w");
printf("&#37;i\n",fputs("Hello world",foo));

fclose(foo);

}

It compiled and ran OK.

Of course the board must be i386 based for Knoppix to run, and it must be possible to set it to boot from the USB key. Also, it must have enougth RAM.