[mythtv-users] Looking for clarity on MythTV, to LIRC, or not to LIRC, ir-keytable, and key mappings

[Paul Bender]

On 4/13/2012 8:59 PM, Ian Evans wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 10:48 PM, Larry K<lunchtimelarry at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> What I am seeing is that with my MCE remote, with the LIRC service stopped,
>> and with v4l-utils NOT installed, MythTV is partially responsive to the
>> keystrokes of my remote.  Some keys work, and others do not.   For instance,
>> the OK button does not work.  Per your diagram, is this interaction
>> happening through a keyboard driver?  If so, it appears that I would control
>> the key mappings to myth via the key bindings menu?  I have no experience
>> messing with hose key bindings, but maybe now is the time to start.
>>
>> With LIRC, I know that ~/.mythtv/lircrc is where I control the key mappings.
>>   Not knowing exactly how the key mappings is being handled outside LIRC is
>> driving me crazy.
>
> This thread came along at the right time for me. If I'm understanding
> things right, I need to move to at least Mythbuntu 11.04 in order to
> get MythTV .25 in the repos. But (again if I'm reading correctly),
> 11.04 is where stuff started changing for lirc or mceusb remotes or
> voodoo...I've been reading too many posts and blogs and other remote
> related stuff and don't want to descend done the wrong rabbit hole.
>
> I saw one posting about the key bindings but, again, I wasn't to clear
> if that allowed you to do specialized keys like Alt+P and stuff like
> that.
>
> Right now, it's my confusion about changes in Ubuntu that's stopping
> me from moving to .25.

Some people prefer handling remote control input using Xorg, and some 
people prefer handling remote control input using LIRC .

Thanks to Jarod's hard work, the LIRC kernel modules are being 
integrated into the mainline kernel. These integrated kernel modules 
appear as event input devices and support the video4linux remote control 
API 
(<http://linuxtv.org/downloads/v4l-dvb-apis/remote_controllers.html>). 
As a result they can be handled by Xorg and they can have their keys 
remapped using ir-keytable.

I prefer to use LIRC rather than Xorg for my remote control inputs. I 
use eventlircd (<http://code.google.com/p/eventlircd/>) to route the 
event devices created by the LIRC kernel modules through LIRC. 
eventlircd is capable of mapping key combinations (such as Alt+P). In 
fact, that is the primary reason that I wrote eventlircd.