LIRC and Hauppauge PVR 250 walkthrough

[EthanMel]

HURRAH!!!

It finally works! I have read a few threads from folks having problems with this. If you are, try the following steps:

1. Remove any references to lirc_dev or lirc_i2c from your module.autoload.d or module.d files to prevent them loading - also a good idea to

rm -rf /dev/lirc*

to prevent conflicts when installing.

2. Unemerge any gentoo portage lirc with

emerge -C lirc

and delete any of the old binaries that you can find if you had any.

3. Compile these modules into your kernel.

Multimedia -->
<M> Video for Linux
Video for Linux -->
[*] V4L interface in proc filesystem
<M> bt848 video for linux

Character Device -->
I2C support -->
<M> I2C Support
<M> I2C bit-banging
<M> I2C PCF 8584 interface
<M> I2C device interface
<M> I2C /proc interface

(not sure about the last one or the pcf 8584 if, I will try without them and report back when I have some time

4. Compile the kernel as per the gentoo installation instructions & reboot (don't forget to rerun lilo if u'r using that

5. Re-install sound & video if necessary, e.g.

emerge alsa-drivers (make sure you have set the ALSA_CARDS env variable - see the alsa guide)

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml

cd /path/to/ivtv
make
make install

6. reboot or modprobe for these to work (i had to reboot once or twice but am a noobie

7. Once sound and video is working again, get the latest tarball from www.lirc.org (i have lirc-0.7.0pre2). Untar (use -j if you have the .bz2 file) and run setup.sh. Select TV card and Hauppauge (new i2c layer) and select exit and run configure.

8. make and make install in the lirc directory - watch for any errors for the latter - if you havn't removed previous references in /dev

9. check for the following to the aliases file (lives in /etc/modules.d I think - this was there from my previous attempts, but seems to be vital!

alias char-major-61 lirc_i2c

#some people report having this also, but i don't
#alias /dev/lirc* lirc_i2c

then at the command prompt in this order (you may need to modules-update first);

modprobe lirc_dev
modprobe lirc_i2c

10. check /etc/init.d/lircd points to correct location (i had to update mine to point to /usr/local/sbin/lircd) and start lircd with /etc/init.d/lircd start

11. check /var/log/lircd for successful detection of hauppauge IR device

12. copy the lircd-g.conf from the IVTV guys utils subdir to /etc/lircd.conf - it is incomplete (only maps a few buttons), but trust it, it *does* work.

13. run irw --version and confirm it is the same as the version you downloaded, then run irw (no arguments). If it bombs back to the command prompt, check the lircd log file for errors (see below about rebooting)

14. push the buttons on your remote and SMILE.. as irw reports button pushes being received...

Upon rebooting, the device creates a char stram as /dev/lirc/0 <-- zero(previously mounted to /dev/lirc). I have no idea why this is, but you can get round it by editing the /etc/init.d/lircd file and add these arguments to the lircd start and stop lines

-- --device=/dev/lirc/0

and restart the service.

Alot of this was from this very good post http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=71148

One point though, I *cannot* get the modules lirc_dev and lirc_i2c to load on boot!!! They generate an error about the bttv module which apparantly is searching for a module called nriva or something??? If anybody has any suggestions as to how to automagically load these, please reply.


Thanks and Good Luck

Iain

[Rroet]

Which kernel version where you using.

Every body keeps posting without kernel versions, i2c and ivtv versions. And I'm currently having much trouble getting the modules compiled without errors. so specific versions would help a big load.

Thanks
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[ian!]

Moved to 'Documentation, Tips & Tricks'.
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[keredson]

FYI, i've written a new lirc ebuild to default to the pvr-250 remote and use the new i2c v2.8.0. check out the post:

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=121039&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

or the ebuild itself:

http://kered.org/dropbox/lirc-0.7.0_pre2-r2.ebuild

-- derek

[theonlymcc]

I have a regular Win-TV card (bttv -card=10) and the ~x86 emerge of lirc compiles and I set my --with-driver option but it won't compile lirc_i2c. It just skips it for some reason. Anyone know how I can fix it? If I try to manually do it, the drivers portion fails and says

[kormoc]

You are using a 2.6.x kernel (or a 2.5.x). The way modules are compiled has changed and the modules need to be updated. That's what that error means :/