[mythtv-users] OT: Second instance of LIRC not needed

[pete stagman]

Hi Everyone,

Because I was having a hard time compiling a second instance of LIRC to
control my DishNetwork receiver(pvr-250 receiver is working fine
controlling MythTV, BTW), I shot an e-mail to the LIRC-list. 

I got a reply from Christoph asking why I wanted to compile a new
instance, since my pvr-250 was working correctly. He explained to me
that current versions of LIRC can be loaded multiple times with
different drivers. 

(Don't get too excited yet, the ATRPMS package
lirc-0.7.0-42.rhfc3.at.i386.rpm doesn't have serial transmit enabled.
I've submitted a package request to Bugzilla and hopefully Axel will
find the time to create a new package. Axel - I know it's not a high
priority.)

All that needs to be done is:
Quoted from Christoph:
"If you want to use more than one device that uses a kernel module you
should now have a look at the character device setup in /dev/. Each LIRC
kernel module provides a device with major number 61 and a minor number
beginning at 0 which is counted up every time a new driver is loaded
(note: both the major number and the minor number concept are subject to
change in future LIRC releases). If you want to use two devices then the
LIRC related files in /dev/ should look something like this (this might
be done automatically if you are using devfs or sysfs):"

$ ls -l /dev/lirc*
crw-r--r-- 1 root root 61, 0 Jan 6 19:01 /dev/lirc
srw-rw-rw- 1 root root 0 Jan 6 19:53 /dev/lircd


You can create new entries by running:
$ mknod /dev/lirc1 c 61 1

$ ls -l /dev/lirc*
crw-r--r-- 1 root root 61, 0 Jan 6 19:01 /dev/lirc
crw-r--r-- 1 root root 61, 1 Jan 6 19:01 /dev/lirc1
srw-rw-rw- 1 root root 0 Jan 6 19:53 /dev/lircd
srw-rw-rw- 1 root root 0 Jan 6 19:28 /dev/lircd1

In modprobe.conf you need something like:

alias char-major-61-0(<notice the -0 added) lirc_i2c
install lirc_i2c /sbin/modprobe ivtv; /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install \
lirc_i2c
alias char-major-61-1 lirc_serial
options lirc_serial irq=4 io=0x3f8
install lirc_serial setserial /dev/ttyS0 uart none; /sbin/modprobe \ 
--ignore-install lirc_serial

To start the daemon you use something like:
$ /usr/sbin/lircd --driver=default --device=/dev/lirc1 \
--output=/dev/lircd1 --pidfile=/var/run/lircd1.pid

When using irsend you use the "device" option to tell irsend which lircd
to use:
$ irsend --device=/dev/lirc1 SEND_ONCE JVC_RAW 2

The "Something like" reference is because I can't actually test if it's
working and I'm not sure those are exactly the right commands.
 
Without transmit enabled in LIRC I've been getting:

irsend: command failed: SEND_ONCE JVC_RAW 2
irsend: hardware does not support sending

I think that's a good sign though, it means that the daemon is trying to
send the output to the serial port from the correct daemon. (I think)

Anyway, I hope this will help the people like me out there who are not
completely fluent in linux and were either having a hard time compiling
or didn't want to try.


--Pete