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

[David Sims]

For the new style remote I had to download a new driver, which is not  
yet part of the lirc distribution.  Written by Martin Blatter the lirc  
driver for the new style remote can be downloaded at  
http://blatter.com/mceusb/.  There's a tarball of the driver, an  
example lircrc file for Myth, and some installation instructions.   
Actually I think he has three different versions of his driver there.   
I just downloaded the newest one.

To use that new driver you'll need to build lirc 0.7.0 from source  
(0.7.1 didn't work very well for me).  Just download the lirc source  
tarball and extract it (if you haven't already), then extract the  
tarball from Martin Blatter on top of it.  Then configure, build, and  
install lirc as I described in the previous post.

With the combination of kernel 2.6.11.7, lirc 0.7.0, and Martin  
Blatter's driver, the new style remote seems to work quit reliably.

- David

On May 1, 2005, at 9:02 AM, Nathan Whittacre wrote:

> So you got the new style remote working with lirc?  Could you share  
> some insight on what you did to get it to work.  I am using kernel  
> version 2.6.11.8 and lirc 0.7.0 and can't get it to work.  It  
> recognizes the remote, but I can't get any data from it.  I've also  
> tried lirc 0.7.1.
>
> Thanks,
> Nathan
>
> David Sims wrote:
>
>> 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
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
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>>
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>
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