[mythtv-users] Setting up USB MCE remote in LIRC?

[David Sims]

On Apr 29, 2005, at 4:53 PM, Lee wrote:
> Having just got my new MythTV install running nicely, I'd like to 
> integrate my (old style) Windows MCE remote into the set up. I've 
> googled for ages and there are lot's of people that seem to have got 
> it working (include Jarod), but I can't find any how-to's or crib 
> sheets. Being a total Linux noob, this leave  me at a loss, can anyone 
> point me in the right direction?
>
> Many thanks,
> Lee

I haven't had any experience with the old style MCE remotes, but I 
recently worked with setting up one of the new style remotes with 
pretty good success.  I'm not sure how far back you can go with lirc, 
but I know lirc 0.7.0 and newer has a driver for the old style MCE 
remote.  If you're comfortable building and installing packages from 
source code, it's really very easy to do with lirc.  I haven't had much 
luck getting the ATrpms.net lirc packages to work in my setup, so I 
can't really help if you prefer to go that route.

I didn't find any detailed how-to's on the MCE remote either, so I'll 
describe what my brother and I did to get the new style remote working. 
  Hopefully this can get you going as well.

I obtained the lirc 0.7.0 source from the lirc web site: 
http://www.lirc.org

- Extract the source tarball and then configure and build from the 
extracted source directory like this:

	# ./configure --with-kerneldir=/lib/modules/`uname -r`/build 
--with-driver=mceusb
	# make
	# make install

	The install should copy the correct lircd.conf file to /etc/lircd.conf.

- You'll also want to put the following in /etc/modprobe.conf:

	alias char-major-61 lirc_mceusb

- I'm not sure if this is really required, but I saw it in some lirc 
instructions somewhere.  Create the /etc/udev/rules.d/lirc.rules and 
put this in it:

	KERNEL="lirc[0-9]*",    NAME="lirc%n"
	KERNEL="lirc0",         SYMLINK="lirc"

- Then make sure the usb receiver is plugged in and load the lirc 
modules:

	# modprobe lirc_mceusb

- Try out lircd and irw to see if it works:

	# lircd -n &
	# irw

	You should see a message printed indicating that lircd accepted a new 
client connection.  Then if you press buttons on the remote you should 
see messages indicating which buttons are being pressed.  If that 
doesn't work, you may need to reboot.  If you reboot with the usb 
receiver plugged in, the lirc modules should automatically load which 
you can verify with the lsmod command:

	# lsmod | grep lirc
	lirc_mceusb            10884  1
	lirc_dev               13388  1 lirc_mceusb

then try the lircd and irw commands again.

One last thing to note.  I'm not sure if this is due to the driver for 
the new style MCE remote, lirc, the kernel, or my own incompetence, but 
we couldn't get lirc working correctly with version 0.7.1 of lirc or 
the 2.6.10-1.770 kernel from ATrpms.  We had to use lirc 0.7.0 and 
kernel version 2.6.11.7 built from source.

Hope that helps,
David