DVICO Remote on Ubuntu Dapper Drake
Last time I turned a linux box into a media box was a while ago so I'm slowly discovering how thing have changed - mostly for the better. It did take me a while to figure out LIRC, though.
As a quick filler: I'm building a media setup in jafren and my place. I have a server box with a bunch of storage, dvd-rw drive and digital tuners which I want to run mythtv-backend and -frontend with a view of getting a seperate box as a -fronend. At the moment I'm using mplayer controlled remotely without a window manager, just using raw X. Running Ubuntu Dapper (server). I want to get my DVICO USB remote control working.
I first tried installing the ubuntu lirc package. (apt-get install lirc). After hunting around in the /usr/share/doc/lirc directory, examing remote/dvico/*, and getting no where I tried for more general instructions. They clearly suggested installing the lirc-modules-source and compiling the kernel modules. I downloaded the package, then reading the README.Debian file which suggested you had to install the kernel-source package. So I did, and built it, and tried again to build the lirc modules. I got sick of this, so I tried downloading LIRC myself direct from the LIRC SourceForge files page and installing it.
~$ wget http://optusnet.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/lirc/lirc-0.8.2.tar.bz2 ~$ tar -jxf lirc-0.8.2.tar.bz2 ~$ cd lirc-0.8.2/ ~/lirc-0.8.2$ ./configure --with-driver=dvico ... Your hardware does not require a special LIRC kernel module. ... ~/lirc-0.8.2$
Ah! Okay. So after a bit more selective googling I found the correct device to listen on (thanks to MythTV.org) and after starting sudo lircd --driver=dvico --device=/dev/hiddev0 now irw returns actual events! Hooray!
After a little more fiddling, creating a lircrc for mplayer (my player of choice at the moment) I'm in business!
To make it work on startup I've updated /etc/lic/hardware.conf to contain DRIVER="dvico" and DEVICE="/dev/hiddev0" but from what I remember that last one might change.
I hope this blog assists the next person (or just me in another 2 years) setting up a DVICO remote with Ubuntu Dapper.
I'll probably blog more about my evolving setup later. Adios!