[mythtv-users] Linux driver support for TBSDTV cards fading

[Stephen Worthington]

On Thu, 1 Dec 2022 22:46:42 +0100, you wrote:

>After a new install of Fedora 37 with Linux kernel 6.something I found
>that  the Linux drivers for the TBSDTV cards are not updated anymore.
>According to the Wiki https://github.com/tbsdtv/linux_media/wiki up to
>kernel 5.18 is supported. The last update of that page is from 13 October.
>The way TBSDTV does support Linux drivers is to let you download, build and
>install a media_build tree patched with support for the TBSDTV cards.
>The media_build tree is from linuxtv.org.
>However, the media_build tree is removed from linuxtv.org as of 28 October
>because it is not supported anymore. See
>https://git.linuxtv.org/media_build.git/commit/?id=67539ba78bf2c2f0f5cf46a1cab412e6487cbaec
>This means that for the time being it is NOT a good idea to upgrade beyond
>kernel 5.18 if you use TBSDTV cards.
>Other than that I do not know anything but it could be that there is a
>brand new project just around the corner... Has been at least 15 years
>since I did anything in LInux drivers....
>
>Klaas.

TBS has a lot of their business invested in Linux - they sell Linux
based boxes that use their cards, and they actively sell them for use
with Linux.  So I think they will eventually come up with a solution
for their Linux drivers.  But it might take a while, especially as the
developer for the current drivers (crazycat) lives in Kharkov,
Ukraine:

https://www.tbsdtv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=87&t=25846

The upstream drivers that used to be provided by the media_build page

https://github.com/tbsdtv/linux_media/wiki

are just the normal kernel drivers in a more usable (ie separately
buildable) form.  So they are still available as part of the full
kernel source, but as such they are subject to being changed whenever
a new update is applied and also the kernel builds for various distros
apply their own patches.  So conflicts with the TBS drivers are more
likely and there may need to be versions for different distros.  In
which case they may only support say Ubuntu (which they seem to use)
and maybe LibreElec for embedded boxes.

I really hope that instead of just keeping on doing their own drivers,
they instead decide to put some effort into getting their drivers into
the official kernel code.  Which would require that their drivers
conform to the kernel rules, which they apparently do not do at
present.  The downside of that is that when they have a new card that
needs new drivers the process of getting the new drivers into the
kernel takes too long - they need to be able to sell the new cards as
soon as they have them ready.  Getting patches applied to kernel
drivers to fix bugs is much quicker.