[mythtv-users] Jetway motherboard IR receiver

[lists.md301]

On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 11:13 PM, Jarod Wilson <jarod at wilsonet.com> wrote:

> On May 31, 2011, at 9:46 AM, lists.md301 wrote:
>
>
> > Patch applied cleanly to 2.6.38-gentoo-r5, and I was able to select the
> new fintek_cir module option.  Two wrinkles I encountered.  First, using my
> kernel oldconfig when compiling the new one, it built the rc-core stuff into
> the kernel, instead of as modules.  My bad, as I should have paid closer to
> attention to the first time I ran menuconfig.
> >
> > Second, this was my first attempt at using a devinput device, which led
> to a couple of issues.  Not sure in hindsight whether it was absolutely
> necessary (Jared may tell me it was),
>
> It wasn't. The fintek-cir driver works with the rc-core ir-lirc-codec
> plugin,
> which provides a classic /dev/lirc0 interface to the hardware.
>
>
I figured out this was still available, eventually, when I noticed the lirc0
interface being created.  However, the one faulty bit of extrapolation on my
part, from my reading of the Gentoo LIRC wiki, was taking the advice that
the lirc_dev was not required, and that its kernel module should be deleted,
when using a devinput device.  Obviously a bad conclusion, as I ended up
with errors from it missing and had to rebuild it.  As mentioned previously,
some of my problems probably resulted from trying to run with my original
lirc-0.8.7 install, which you reminded me wouldn't work.  Not sure what I
was doing when in my debug effort.


> > It was in debugging this process that I discovered that rc-core wasn't
> compiled as a module.  It took me a little while to understand how devinput
> devices are discovered and used.  Once I understood what the documentation
> was telling me, I was able to see that an rc0 system resource was being
> created and linked to a /dev/input/eventX.  The Gentoo wiki entry about LIRC
> is pretty good at explaining this.  I had to create my own udev rule (as
> none exists in my way-behind udev version) so that a /dev/input/irremote
> soft link is created when the fintek_module is probed.  The Gentoo wiki
> describes parsing a /sys/class/rc subdirectory to search/grep for the proper
> link for the handle, and putting that in the /etc/conf.d file, but I
> preferred the udev rule route.
>
> Ideally, /dev/input/by-id/ links should be set up for all rc-core drivers,
> but
> that's not the case for any of the pnp-based drivers yet, only the usb
> ones.
> On my TODO list to figure out how to remedy that.
>
>
Thanks for the explanation.  I was wondering about that. I had looked for
those links.


>
> > My final mistake was thinking that the lircd.conf for the MCE USB and a
> devinput device are the same.
>
> Yeah, not even close.
>
>
> >  They're not.  Likewise the keymap names that I previously used are
> different for the .lircrc that existed in my mythtv home directory.  Once I
> finally got irw to give me an output from the fintek_cir module, I had to
> recreate my own .lircrc by editing a copy of the one I had been using for
> the MCE remote.  Maybe one existed somewhere, but I didn't have the patience
> to track it down.
>
> Well, I have one that I use myself, but it may or may not line up with how
> you
> have things mapped.
>
>
I'm happy with the keymapping I created.  A good re-learning experience.
You are right that such things end up being a personal preference.  Wasn't
too difficult to do.  And with using the remote as a devinput device, I
noticed (obviously) that key presses also show up on a console/terminal
window.  At least the up arrow, as I was able to bring up the mythfrontend
text on the xterm CLI with it.

One final comment/question:  part of the reason I ended up using the Fintek
as a devinput device is that I was unsure as to what device to
compile/select in lirc 9.0 to work with it, for the /dev/lirc0 interface.  I
didn't see anything in the documentation available, realizing that doc often
lags functionality.  I was under the impression that choosing an MCE USB
would NOT work (since that would select the wrong kernel driver), and I
thought my debug testing proved that, but I may have been trying that with
0.8.7 which would not have been aware of the newest drivers.  Maybe choosing
NOTHING is the correct option?  If you could clarify that a bit more, it
might be helpful to others.  Haven't had time to retrace my steps to test
whether my /dev/lirc0 would work now that I have 0.9.0 installed, given the
correct lircd.conf file (but which one?).
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