[mythtv-users] bttv driver

[Edward Wildgoose]

> <poznick at conwaycorp.net> wrote:
> >
> > The source tree that you had... did you configure, compile, and install
> > your currently running kernel from it?  Also, when you went into the
> > configuration to add the bttv driver, did you make everything a module?
> 
> Actually, I had recompiled and upgraded the kernel to 2.4 just after I 
> installed Debian 3.0.  I did not patch it to include the bttv driver, but I 
> did enable Video4Linux support.  I am assuming now that the correct way is 
> to patch it and recompile.  I will try that.  However, one of the things I 
> usually do is make everything built-in to the kernel and not use any 
> modules at all.  It can probably be argued either way whether that is a 
> good or bad thing, but I have never had problems before doing it that way.

Compiling the bttv driver as a module allows you to setup certain parameters easily such as the card type and number of buffers.  I suggest that this is probably the way you want to go in this case (unless you are quite fortunate and the defaults work OK)

> > A good thing to try is often to do a make clean on your kernel tree,
> > make sure it's configured the way you want it, and then do a fresh
> > build, install it, and boot into it...  Typically when you get
> > unresolved symbols like that, it indicates some sort of kernel mismatch.
> >
> 
> Will try this.  I wish the docs were clearer on how to patch the kernel 
> using the bttv driver 0.7.  Maybe I'll try the 0.9 driver.

You shouldn't need to patch a standard 2.4.20 kernel to get the bttv driver working.  I missed the first part of the thread so I don't know if you have some special requirements, but most people are OK just grabbing the 2.4 source and configuring v4l support and then choosing bt8xx drivers.