Template:RemoteControlSupport

Remote Control Support

Usually remote controls in linux are managed by the lirc software.

To get lirc up and running you need to configure some things.

• settings for device(where does lirc get its input from) and driver(what kind of input is it)
• settings for mapping driver output (a bunch of hex numbers) to key names (something like 0..9, Volume+, Next, Record)
• settings for mapping key presses to actions (usually located in your .lircrc)

LIRC device/driver settings

Find the IR receiver's device by looking in the dmesg output for a line similar to:

input: IR-receiver inside an USB DVB receiver as /class/input/input4

Additionally, the IR receiver will be listed if you execute the command:

cat /proc/bus/input/devices

For example:

I: Bus=0003 Vendor=2040 Product=9950 Version=0100
N: Name="IR-receiver inside an USB DVB receiver"
P: Phys=usb-0000:07:01.2-1/ir0
S: Sysfs=/class/input/input4
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=kbd event4 
B: EV=3
B: KEY=14afc336 284284d00000000 0 480058000 219040000801 9e96c000000000 90020000000ffd

In this example, the remote control gives output into /dev/input/event4.

The event number depends on your particular system and can vary.

Eventually this event number can even vary at every reboot.

You could create a new udev rule in /etc/udev/rules.d/65-persistent-hauppauge.rules.

KERNEL=="input*", ATTRS{name}=="IR-receiver inside an USB DVB receiver", SYMLINK+="input/dvb-ir"

It has been mentionned that the following line works, instead of the above line (needs confirmation and deletion of the ugly line):

KERNEL=="event*", ATTRS{name}=="IR-receiver inside an USB DVB receiver", SYMLINK+="input/dvb-ir"

This would make the Hauppauge receiver always always be linked to /dev/input/dvb-ir.

But Linux systems runing recent udev will automatically create non-varying names, a nicer and automatic way of providing a stable input event name:

$ ls -la /dev/input/by-path/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 140 2008-02-07 20:31 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 280 2008-02-07 20:31 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   9 2008-02-07 20:31 pci-0000:00:1a.1-usb-0:2:1.0-event-kbd -> ../event1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   9 2008-02-07 20:31 pci-0000:00:1a.1-usb-0:2:1.1-event-mouse -> ../event2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   9 2008-02-07 20:31 pci-0000:00:1a.1-usb-0:2:1.1-mouse -> ../mouse1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   9 2008-02-07 20:31 pci-4-1--event-ir -> ../event4
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   9 2008-02-07 20:31 platform-pcspkr-event-spkr -> ../event3

LIRC will use it without needing a special kernel module. use the dev/input driver and specify the input event device in /etc/lirc/hardware.conf (the dev/input driver may have been renamed to devinput, you can check this with the command "lircd --device=help"):

# /etc/lirc/hardware.conf
#
# Arguments which will be used when launching lircd
LIRCD_ARGS=""

#Don't start lircmd even if there seems to be a good config file
#START_LIRCMD=false

#Try to load appropriate kernel modules
LOAD_MODULES=true

# Run "lircd --driver=help" for a list of supported drivers.
DRIVER="dev/input"
# If DEVICE is set to /dev/lirc and devfs is in use /dev/lirc/0 will be
# automatically used instead
DEVICE="/dev/input/by-path/pci-4-1--event-ir"
MODULES=""

# Default configuration files for your hardware if any
LIRCD_CONF="/etc/lirc/lircd.conf"
LIRCMD_CONF=""

Key Setup

Depends on your remote. See device specific section below.

Sample .lircrc

A sample .lircrc can be found LircrcExample here.