[mythtv-users] Lirc + mceusb + MythTV

[Rich West]

I admit my question is probably more in the lirc realm than mythtv, yet
after a lot of searching, numerous tries, questions with different answers,
this community is more likely to have paved this road already.  In other
words, I haven't had much luck elsewhere. :( That, and I've fallen down the
rabbit hole and can't find my way out. :)

Backstory:
I'm trying to increase the WAF (Wife Approval Factor) by updating my
frontends with some very nice book-sized systems with SSD's and the ability
to put the system into/out-of suspend from the remote control.

I've been using a OneForAll remote (URC-6131n) with a serial IR receiver on
each of my existing systems, and the remote happily controls (via the
appropriate lircd.conf file) mythtv, the TV power, volume (depending upon
room, it could be volume on an amp or volume on the tv), and power for
everything but the mythtv frontend computer.

These book sized systems are fast and very quiet.  And, being a bit more
modern than my SK21G shuttle boxes, they can wake up from suspend from an
MCE remote.

So.. my quandary:

I had purchased at one time about 2 years ago a USB IR receiver and MCE
remote.  At the time, I determined an MCE remote was just plain garbage (I
needed "One Remote To Rule Them All".. hence the OneForAll remote. :) ) and
I put it aside.  With this new system I am testing (Fedora16,
mythtv-0.25.2), I found that this little MCE IR receiver, when the power
button was hit on the MCE remote, would wake the system out of suspend mode
with the right acpi events defined (echo enabled >
/sys/bus/usb/devices/4-4/power/wakeup; cat /proc/acpi/wakeup; udev rule,
etc) and BIOS setting.

However, I cannot seem get the IR receiver to receive anything other than
input from the POS MCE remote.

The device "Bus 004 Device 002: ID 073a:2230 Chaplet Systems, Inc." gets
identified and picked up by the kernel module "mceusb".  I'd like to wrap it
around lirc so I can map additional buttons, perform more complex functions
(X10 off the lights, which I do with the serial IR receiver), etc.

I tried a number of different methods, yet I am also trying to stay
supportable (I would prefer to not recompile the kernel each time I upgrade)
and as main-stream as possible (arguments about the distro of choice aside,
of course).


 usb 4-4: config 1 interface 0 altsetting 0 has 2 endpoint descriptors,
different from the interface descriptor's value: 1
 usb 4-4: New USB device found, idVendor=073a, idProduct=2230
 usb 4-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=0, SerialNumber=0
 input: HID 073a:2230 as
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.0/usb4/4-4/4-4:1.0/input/input5
 hid-generic 0003:073A:2230.0001: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.10 Keyboard [HID
073a:2230] on usb-0000:00:12.0-4/input0

"/usr/sbin/lircd --driver=devinput --device=/dev/input/event4" can be run
and it definitely overrides input (the mce remote stops working), yet I get
nothing from irw or irrecord.

I saw a bunch of older postings from Jarod Wilson along with a few others,
yet I still seem stuck in the same position. Any pointers in the right
direction would be fantastic.  I just get the feeling that (1) this is
do-able with the hardware I have and (2) I can't be the only one to do this.. :)

Thanks!
-Rich