[mythtv-users] how do i set up a second ir transmitter on fedora 16

[Karl Newman]

On Sat, May 26, 2012 at 6:58 PM, John Nissley <jnissley at nissley.org> wrote:
> I am running fedora 16 and mythtv trunk.  I have two hdpvr's and two set top
> boxes along with and HDHR3.  I was using firewire to change channels but it
> appears my STB's have stopped accepting channel changes via firewire and I
> have given up trying to get time warner to help get it fixed.  I figure they
> will never turn off the ir so I am going to convert my channel changes to
> use ir.
>
> I have an msusb for my receiver and and using one of the transmitters on the
> msusb to change channels on one of my stb's with the use if the
> irchannelchange.pl script.  I am now trying to get my second stb to change
> channels and time warner has told me that I can not make one of the stb's
> use a different set of ir codes so I need to get a second ir transmitter
> working.  I have a serial ir transmitter from years ago and I have one
> serial port on my mother board so I am trying to go that route.  I have
> successfully installed the serial modules for lirc and now have a /dev/lirc0
> (msusb) and a /dev/lirc1 (Serial IR I think) however I do not know how to
> get /dev/lirc1 set up to take commands.
>
> I am also confused if I need to use lircd or if everything is in the fedora
> kernel and I do not even need lirc.  Also I am using irexec to handle the
> power button.  Please help guide me to a solution.

Yes, you will need lircd. In fact, you'll need two instances of lircd,
one for each driver. You set one up as a server, and the other one up
as a client talking to it. I just got rid of my multi-driver
configuration a couple weeks ago so I'm sorry I don't have examples.
This wiki page may be helpful:
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Multiple_LIRC_Drivers
In general, it's going to look like this (not exactly positive this is
correct, but it should be kind of close):

# server instance
/usr/bin/lircd --driver=mceusb --listen=8765 -d /dev/lirc0
--output=/var/run/lirc/lircd
# client instance
/usr/bin/lircd --driver=serial --connect=8765 -d /dev/lirc1
--output=/var/run/lirc/lircd1

And then in your channel change script you'll need to make sure you
specify the correct socket for the appropriate transmitter. i.e.:
irsend -d /var/run/lirc/lircd1 SEND_ONCE $remote_name KEY_$_

Actually now I'm not sure if you really need the listen/connect
parameters if one of the drivers is transmit-only. Whatever, hopefully
this will help you along.

Karl