Using an IR Blaster with MythTV
[1].
by Robert Wamble
Current Location of IR Blaster Howto and various files: [2]
NEW: I've recently updated the HOWTO for Fedora Core 5, kernel 2.6.17, and lirc-0.8.1pre1.
The mission was to get MythTV to use my Actisys IR-200L blaster to change channels on my Motorola DCT2244. Since MythTV uses lirc for its remote control, and lirc has not (for me) easily handled two devices simultaneously, I had to get an independent lirc running to drive the blaster. To do this, I followed the recommendations found in mythtv-users postings by Sriram Balakrishnan, Gary Te Young, and Mike Smith.
The HOWTO and accompanying scripts comprise my attempt to steamline the process for others. While I can only say that this works for my setup, hopefully it will be helpful with other hardware combinations.
A download link is available at the page above for an already converted remote* package, so that you can skip the script based process of converting lirc* to remote*. There's also a link to a channel.pl that handles 4 digit channels.
Alternative IR Blaster HOWTO
A second IR BLASTER HOWTO has been posted to [3] with a mirror at [4]
IR Blaster Setup without compiling second instance of LIRC
This is an IR Blaster setup guide primarily meant for FC3 users who followed Jarod Wilson's setup guide. With this version, a second install of LIRC is not needed. All necessary components can be downloaded from atrpms.net via apt-get (which will already be done if Jarod's guide was followed). This means that no compiling is necessary. Simply editing a few files is enough to achieve this. This is especially useful for FC3 users, as kernel source is no longer included with that linux distribution.
