[wellylug] SAA7134

[David Antliff]

On Wed, 21 Apr 2004, Vincent Cox wrote:
> I'd be intersted to know what's involved in getting the remote control
> working.

Ok, to avoid propagating misinformation I'll keep this as brief and
to-the-point as possible. What I present here is how I got it working (in
Gentoo).

1. Kernel modules:

$ cat /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6
ir-common repeat=0
saa7134 card=2
evdev

'repeat=0' is meant to disable autorepeat on the remote buttons. It
doesn't seem to work, so you have to be short'n'sharp when pressing them.
It doesn't take long to get used to that. I seem to recall leaving that
option off causes worse problems however.

The 'evdev' module is required because it creates /dev/input/eventX.

2. Emerge lirc. You need to configure it to use the '/dev/input'
interface.

3. Configure /etc/lircd.conf:

$ cat /etc/lircd.conf
begin remote

  name  flyvideo3000

  begin codes

    AIR_CATV            0x00010182
    VIDEO               0x00010189
    AUDIO               0x00010188
    POWER               0x00010074
    AV_SOURCE           0x000100b0
    FULLSCREEN          0x00010174
    STEREO              0x00010079
    MUTE                0x00010071
    VOLUME_UP           0x00010073
    VOLUME_DOWN         0x00010072
    CHANNEL_UP          0x00010192
    CHANNEL_DOWN        0x00010193
    RECALL              0x00010081
    ENTER               0x00010060
    1                   0x0001004f
    2                   0x00010050
    3                   0x00010051
    4                   0x0001004b
    5                   0x0001004c
    6                   0x0001004d
    7                   0x00010047
    8                   0x00010048
    9                   0x00010049
    0                   0x00010052

  end codes

end remote



I determined those codes way back myself, using the 'input' tools from
bytesex.org. You can do the same if you want, to see where they came from.

4. Start up lirc and you should see /dev/lircd appear:

$ ls -l /dev/lircd
srw-rw-rw-    1 root     root            0 Apr 21 12:34 /dev/lircd

5. Configure your ~/.lircrc as per the lirc docs. E.g:

begin
    button = VOLUME_UP
    prog = irexec
    config = volume -u
end
begin
    button = VOLUME_DOWN
    prog = irexec
    config = volume -d
end


The key programs here are 'irexec' and 'irxevent'. Some programs such as
xawtv, mplayer and xmms also have built-in lirc support. Check the lirc
website for details. All of these lirc-aware programs parse your ~/.lircrc
(hence the 'prog' value above).

I start irxevent and irexec from my ~/.xinitrc

That's all there is to it, I think. It's been a while since I set this all
up, and it's worked fine ever since. If you think I've missed any steps,
or you want clarification, let me know.

You don't need to mess around with irrecord at all.

According to qpkg -l lirc, there's a file /etc/conf.d/lircd - I haven't
touched this at all.

Cheers,
David.