[mythtv-users] (somewhat off-topic) compiling the TBS 6981 driver

[Stephen Worthington]

On Tue, 31 Dec 2013 15:05:08 +0000, you wrote:

>Thanks Stephen:
>
>
>On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 1:09 PM, Stephen Worthington <
>stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz> wrote:
>
>> I have a TBS5922 USB DVB-S2 box, and I have never had any problems
>> with the install, but I have been looking at automating it using dkms,
>> so I have some idea of how it works.  Your install procedure above
>> looks fine to me, and I presume that you checked the output of the
>> make and make install commands to see if there were any errors.
>
>
>I believe I did: it looked like a non-error exit, though I did not check
>the exit code.
>I'll redo that and check very carefully...
>...yes, make completed with exit code 0.
>
>
>> I would first suggest checking that the install did actually work.
>> This should show the *.ko driver files installed in the correct spot:
>>
>> ls -al /lib/modules/`uname
>> -r`/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/frontends/*tbs*
>>
>> This is what I get:
>>
>
>Yes, I also get a similar bunch of files in the equivalent place for my
>kernel and card.
>
>
>> Check the files dates and make sure they match when you did the
>> install, and that your tbs6981fe.ko is there.
>
>
>Yes and yes.
>
>
>>  I am not sure if the
>> TBS6981 needs a firmware file, but check to see if any have been
>> installed:
>>
>> find /lib/firmware -iname "dvb-fe-cx24116.fw"
>> find /lib/firmware -iname "*tbs*.fw"
>> find /lib/firmware -iname "v4l-cx23885-avcore-01.fw"
>>
>> This is what I get:
>>
>> /lib/firmware/dvb-fe-cx24116.fw
>> /lib/firmware/dvb-usb-tbsqbox-id5926.fw
>> /lib/firmware/dvb-usb-tbsqbox-id5922.fw
>> /lib/firmware/v4l-cx23885-avcore-01.fw
>>
>
>Aha: here I only get the last one:
>/lib/firmware/v4l-cx23885-avcore-01.fw
>
>Note that at some point (before posting here) I found a place on the net
>that suggested copying that particular file (v4l-cx23885-avcore-01.fw) from
>the drivers package to /lib/firmware. I checked and found I already had a
>file by that name in /lib/firmware, but with a different md5sum. So I
>overwrote it with the one from the drivers package, by hand (cp). I don't
>have any /lib/firmware/tbs*fw and I have wome unrelated
>/lib/firmware/dvb*fw.
>
>
>> Check that the TBS hardware is actually visible to the system:
>>
>> lspci | grep -i tbs
>>
>
>No, I get empty output here. What could I do?
>

Looks like I got that wrong.  Take a look at this page:

  http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/TBS6981

It shows a sample lspci output for the TBS6981, and it appears that
TBS did not customise the card at all and just used a generic chipset.
So it does not have "tbs" in its name for grep to find.  So check if
your card is producing similar lspci output.

The sample dmesg output there might also be helpful - see what
relevant bits of that you do and do not have in your dmesg output. You
might like to post a copy of your full dmesg output on a site like
patebin.com and give us a pointer so we can check it out for you.
>
>> Next, I would see what happens when you try to load the driver
>> manually:
>>
>> modprobe tbs6981fe.ko
>>
>
>
>FATAL: Module tbs6981fe.ko not found.
>
>Further suggestions gratefully received!

Oops, sorry, I got that command wrong.  When using modprobe, you need
to use the driver name, not the full file name.  Try this:

modprobe tbs6981fe

and then check the logs and dmesg again to see if there is anything
new.

And also try:

modprobe -l tbs*

which should list all the tbs* driver files that the system can see.