[mythtv-users] Setting up a USB IR receiver (Streamzap)

[Brian Wood]

On Feb 10, 2007, at 12:31 PM, Neil Cherry wrote:

> Chris Weiland wrote:
>> This isn't really a mythtv specific question, but I don't know of  
>> many
>> other places to look.  I just got a Streamzap USB IR receiver, and I
>> can't seem to figure out how to use it.
>>
>> My problem is that I can't get a /dev entry for it.  I think there's
>> supposed to be a /dev/usb/hiddev0 that is used to interface with the
>> device, but that file is not there, and I can't figure out how to  
>> get it
>> there.  Everywhere I've searched says that I just need to enable the
>> "/dev/hiddevX support" kernel option and then everything will work.
>> Well, after doing that, the device still doesn't show up anywhere in
>> /dev.  I can see the device being detected in dmesg whenever I  
>> remove or
>> plug in the device.  The device shows up in /proc/bus/usb/devices,
>> lsusb, and usbview, but usbview shows it in red, which, according  
>> to one
>> site, means that there is "no driver bound to it".  How would I  
>> fix this?
>>
>> I think I've also read somewhere that I should be using "hotplug",  
>> which
>> I guess refers to the hotplug package.  However, if I try to  
>> install it,
>> apt forces me to remove udev.  Do I want to do this?
>>
>> I'm running Debian Etch, kernel 2.6.20.
>
> Don't remove udev but remove the usb device, do a dmesg, make a
> general note of the last few lines, plug in the usb device and
> do another dmesg. Did you see the new lines? One of them may
> be an assignment for the device driver. Also if the hid is a kernel
> module check to see that it's loaded (lsmod) you should see an
> hid entry (and maybe another hid... something). Sorry I can't
> remember more at this moment.
>

Not specific to Debian but with Gentoo (and I assume all kernels) you  
need to make sure "HID Input Layer support as well as /dev/hiddev raw  
HID input device support are both enabled in the kernel.

Having the first and not the second will result in precisely the  
behavior you describe, though there are of course other things that  
might cause it as well.